Bounty Update: Leader of the Black Dead 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, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Misuse of World Government Property

Amount: 150,000,000 Beri

It is now day

405 days since rising from the grave

27 days left in this dimension

So, the Grand Line, huh? It doesn't really look like much of a difference compared to the South Blue, if you're honest, aside from the somewhat weird weather that's probably your fault if you're gonna be honest.

Then again, you shouldn't really expect giant flying sharks with laser eyes and ballistic artillery pieces for fins or anything right away. Like, you still want laser sharks at some point, but if those came out to play right away nobody would make it anywhere in this place, you reckon.

"Here we are then," you ultimately shrug and say aloud, looking out at the great wide sea, only slightly acidic and reddened by the rain still falling over here despite you having already stopped pushing it into existence. "Looks kind of empty."

Over back by the foot of Reverse Mountain stands a lighthouse, only a little damaged by the acid rain, its top in particular kind of eaten away. If you had to guess, whoever usually keeps it in working order got out of dodge when the weather conditions started worsening beyond the usual for around here, but where exactly they are is hard to say.

There's also some really big living being way below the water's surface right now, presumably also having just dived down to avoid the increasingly acidic layers of ocean up here. Which, y'know, is only reasonable.

"Forget about that, let's go already," Sarah insists, tugging at your arm, your Log Pose strapped to her wrist like a wristwatch. "The sooner we get going, the sooner we can see one of the routes through this dump!"

"…You're not thinking of being all completionist about this, are you? There's no way we'll go through the Grand Line until we've seen literally every piece of it," you caution her.

"Never say never before you know the odds," you sister-wife grins up at you, her golden-blonde hair framing her vulpine smirk. "If we hurry, we totally could."

"Maybe, but why hurry? Let's take it nice and easy and just see what happens."

Sometimes, that's really just the best thing to do in life, after all, and you've officially declared here and now to be one of those cases.

With the move over to the Grand Line complete and the ship in good hands even without you around, it doesn't take you long to make the executive decision of going right back to sleep, of course. It isn't like you have an issue with the thought of sticking around, but really, time is all kinds of valuable and you'd just be wasting it right now.

You don't want to become a permanently hibernating corpse, of course, but the longer you stay one, the more time everyone else has right now relative to the metaphorical timer running down the clock whenever you're active. To be honest, you're just glad you do have a way to circumvent the whole thing, even if it does involve being pretty much dead to the world in some ways.

It's one of those annoying little snags in your whole routine at this point, and you may have to try your hand at extra-dimensional calisthenics or something to see if that helps. But for now, it's back to your somewhat opulent bedroom to serve as more of a prop than a captain until such a time as that you awaken again!

And in the meantime, well, you can go right ahead and watch what happens aboard the- Why is the crew putting on some improv theatre about what they think you'll find on the Grand Line? What the hell did you miss?

Alright, so with some perspective and the chance to see the Grand Line in action, you can now confirm the weather conditions here do indeed earn its reputation and then some, considering just how… temperamental, let's say, they can be.

It doesn't take you longer than five minutes, once the Log Pose has gotten its shit together, to be swept into a rapidly moving storm, the kind of which might well capsize smaller vessels than your own before anyone aboard could react, normally. The Grand Cruiser, naturally, isn't exactly a normal ship and proceeds to cut through the suddenly sky-high waves in style, hitting walls of moving water like a battering ram every time.

All the while lightning strikes all around and the sky is covered in thick layer upon layer of clouds, making a nice point on how you need a Log Pose to get anywhere around this place. Case in point, without one you'd have been thrown off any normal course already.

Of course you have other means to deal with these kinds of hazards, but that's besides the point- the average pirate crew has to work with what it can get, explaining nicely how and why the Grand Line is regarded with such dread amongst those that actually sailed it and managed to get out before they died horribly.

Anyways, you sail on through the first storm, all but splashing off a giant wave and onto calm waters in the span of half a minute. Honestly, it really is a good thing you kept durability in mind as a foremost concern when you rebuilt your ship, if this is any indication of what's to come.

Especially when the next particular notable issue you meet, a day after that first greeting from the Grand Line, is a giant cyclone, basically a pillar of water surging towards the skies, turning around itself as it rages on. Sarah wants to try just sailing around it at first, but once you make yourself known telepathically and insist that would be a waste of time, a plan that has Kate laughing like a lunatic for ten minutes straight is implemented instead.

As you said, the Grand Cruiser is durable. And so it comes that it pushes onwards, undaunted (you might even call it… Dauntless, heh) regardless of the threat ahead.

Everyone has to stay below deck as your creation is picked up by the cyclone's torrential forces, lifted from the sea and drawn into what would be a sure death for everyone aboard (that's not a vampire) if it weren't for its ability to project that bubble of breathable air around itself.

With it, you can essentially treat this otherwise easily lethal weather phenomenon as a minor speed bump at worst, rising through the water swirling around itself mercilessly as the Grand Cruiser joins in, turning once, twice-

One of the crew members vomits as you're treated to an impromptu roller coaster ride (again), but your ship is spat back out in more or less the direction you want to go just fine in short order, crashing out of the cyclone with enough force to to fly for a good bit. You may need to add a little more armoring to some of its hull, all things told, but you make it through without a scratch otherwise.

"Take that, Mother Nature! Suck on these tits, bitch! Muahahaha!"

Also, it turns out Kate gets a rush out of defying nature. Like, a really hard one. Nice to see her have so much fun.

When the first proper island you see during your tour of the Grand Line comes into sight, it's immediately obvious the place is inhabited at a glance- dozens of ships are moving all around it, some of them clearly patrolling the sea, others moving to and from the one port you can see already and other, presumably nearby ones across the coast.

For a moment, you could assume this was a perfectly normal island, just from what you can make out from afar. The illusion shatters, of course, when you look at the flags flown across these ships; some of them have plain blue ones, probably just used by the island itself, but more than half of them fly a Jolly Roger of one kind or another.

Were this somewhere else in the world, this kind of thing would require some careful bribing of the right Marine to keep functioning without being flooded with Marines in short order, but it seems just being on the Grand Line makes it much easier to operate a pirate haven like this.

Then again, it's nigh impossible for the average pirate to choose to come here beyond rolling the dice, a one in seven chance to end up here in particular, and moving on to the next island means being unable to come back, so this isn't as much as haven as it is… a place people stop at for extended periods of time, you guess?

You're still sitting around inside your cabin, stuck in hibernation, when the Grand Cruiser draws close enough to one of those pirate ships that look like they're patrolling around the island for those on deck to see each other. The crew's out and ready for anything just in case, along with Kate and Taylor just in any sort of case.

Better to have mass murder machines on hand and not need them than need some mass murder to happen and not having anyone ready to commit it and all that.

Which, as it so happens, probably was a wise decision. "Newcomers! Hand over all your treasure if you want to go any further!"

…You know, these are pirates. It really was to be expected.

Judging by their bearing, this lot must be quite used to trying to extort ships that freshly arrived on the Grand Line. Also judging by the same, they're equally used to dealing with anyone that refuses their 'generous' offer, already readying the cannons and ready for a fight whether your crew moves a single muscle to oppose them or not.

Ah well, you could go and deal with them, but it honestly doesn't feel like it'd be worth the bother. Instead, you… continue being in hibernation, you suppose, not even bothering to ask Sarah to stop kissing you for a moment to fetch some blood to mix in on the action.

Meanwhile, the girls can go ahead and hog the fun to themselves for now. You'd call it the other kind of fun, but it's not like you're actually feeling anything that's going on with your body right now, so it's really more just your sister playing with a you-shaped doll than anything.

In your opinion, anyways. You're not about to go and spoil her fun.

In the meantime, of course, these Grand Line pirates are well in hand by your people actually on deck right now, which is… everyone on the ship except for Sarah and Sherrel, really. The latter of which is busy tinkering with a few of your cannons right now and doesn't really care about these jokers.

Until she gets to blow them up, but that's unlikely as of right now. Honestly, you'd pity these poor fools… If they didn't, y'know, completely and absolutely deserve the sheer, total ass-kicking they're about to receive.

"Yeah? You want our shit?" Kate shouts back, leaning against the railing of your stolen, heavily modified and painted-over Marine ship. "C'mon over and take it. We'll start slow with the bullets, promise!"

The other pirates don't respond, instead just drifting closer and closer, until nobody needs to shout anymore to be heard. They also are holding their own guns, already pointed at your ship. "No, please," the man that seems to be in charge here says, "you're our guests. Take our bullets first, we insist."

If this was some kind of show, this would be where the hostile crew opens fire. It isn't, though, and they don't get to- the moment they try, their pistols and muskets simply… fall apart, rusted over and eaten away by rot.

Unbeknownst to them, small flies scuttle away in the chaos in short order, Taylor's extended pieces sneaking away for later. She's really gotten good with her semblance, as moments like these more than prove.

"You were sayin'?" Kate asks, casually raising a musket of her own- and just as casually blowing a hole through the lead pirate's head, his blood disappearing quickly as soon as he dies. "Heh. Never gets old. Now what're you guys waiting for?"

With a lopsided grin, your girlfriend hops over aboard the other ship, slamming a fist into the first guy too late to get out of her way.

"Die already so we can take all your shit!"

That's about the point Taylor's giant crabs surface, climbing onto the other deck and grabbing one of the hostile pirates each, and before you know it they, Kate and your crew are methodically taking all of them apart one by one. You just love to see this kind of efficiency, you suppose.

Now to see what the rest of all these ships think about this…

With Kate and Taylor making sure to absorb the souls of all the people aboard this particular ship, you soon have plenty of information about the island you're about to dock at to work with, all relevant intel being promptly dumped into your telepathic web while they finish things off with a bang.

Literally, as Sherrel finishes up with that cannon just at the right time. The projectile it fires does… something to relative space, you think, displacing it momentarily and folding it into itself, overlapping parts of the ship with each other and the ocean below it.

Then it snaps back into place as violently as you'd imagine it would, snapping the wooden construction of the pirate ship into dozens of pieces that get splattered every which way, flying far and wide from where they're all but detonated away from.

…To be honest, you're kind of impressed. Both in just how destructive this particular new weapon is and in just how unnecessarily over-engineered it seems, even by tinkertech standards. Who needs spatial manipulation to blow shit up real good?

Then again, you can't really talk, you literally make a hobby out of over-engineering stuff. Building some kind of space-folding super-cannon would be entirely on brand for you as well.

At any rate, now unimpeded, the Grand Cruiser resumes its journey, uncaring of the other ships now heading its way. Looks like your clear and thorough argumentation against the first bunch of pirates you hit upon has attracted further participants to the discussion about to be had on the topic of property, theft and the ways in which it is committed in practical terms throughout modern society.

Case in point, these guys swarming all around this island? Yeah, as it turns out they really are pirate crews that entered the Grand Line and just kind of got… stuck here, coming upon a decently liveable island ruled by, wait for it, a particularly fat and nasty pirate. Bozo the Robber Baron, he calls himself, having made a living out of forcing anyone that comes through this place to fork over any of their valuables before they can move on.

He's said to be huge as two men stacked atop each other, and thrice as fat, according to these initial victims whose memories you're sorting through right now. More importantly, he's eaten a Devil Fruit, which is common knowledge around these parts, though none of these low-level pirates have ever actually seen him fight to tell you about what it supposedly does.

As for why so many ships are around? Well, when having all their money taken, a lot of pirates apparently decide to just stay around rather than go on penniless, working for this Bozo character instead and getting to grab a part of any loot they take from any newcomers before it's brought to the man himself.

Which is what that first ship's worth of pirates tried to do before being introduced to the Gabe-unism manifesto's opinion on property. And the same, consequently, goes for the two dozen or so ships now trying to come at you while the Grand Cruiser's en route to Robber Island.

Literally, that's what they called it. You know what, still better than some other names you've come across so far.

Unwilling to waste any more time with these morons than absolutely necessary, you give the order to wipe them all out before they so much as come within normal cannon distance to your ship, using whatever means necessary. As a result, well, Sherrel gets a few more shots off using her supra-space cannon, as she's provisionally calling it, while Kate just makes full use of her unique-ish powers over guns and bullets and all such things.

Bullets go very fast. That's their whole purpose, and the reason they're so dangerous when fired- you shouldn't need to explain this to anyone with even some basic understanding of physics. Thing is, kinetic energy is kind of funny in some ways, and while you could bust out some formulas to really go into depth on this, there's an easier way to put what she does into words.

Simply put, Kate fires a bullet. This bullet, after a few moments of flight, temporarily enlarges several dozens of times over, becoming larger than a cannon ball, while retaining all speed and momentum involved in being fired off.

This, it could be said, lets her turn any handheld gun into the equivalent of a major modern naval cannon, as long as she can adjust her aim accordingly. Considering she also has powers that let her burn through some of the blood she's permanently drunk on to hit with nigh absolute certainty, she's, uh, pretty fucking lethal to just about anyone and anything that isn't categorically immune to naval bombardment.

Wooden ships the kind of which are widely used in this world, for the record, are not in fact immune to naval bombardment. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Oh, and while all of that's going on, Taylor uses her crabs to feed through them, having them covertly swim through the ocean using their grossly expanded bodies (compared to normal crabs, you mean), climb aboard a good couple ships and just use their claws to cut the crews there apart, then stuff the body halves into their mandibles, draining the blood for her and consuming the bodies as sustenance for the crabs.

In the general storm of carnage unleashed, the Grand Cruiser itself moves like the eye of a storm, entirely untouched by anything going on. Slowly realizing that to come closer is a death sentence, once the first dozen or so ships are reduced to sinking wrecks, if even that, the swarms of pirates surrounding Robber Island eventually do think better than to approach.

Good for them. Turns out even complete and utter idiots can, at times, learn.

When you finally dock on Robber Island, your ship visibly moving by itself without any of the crew doing any of the usual, y'know, work involved in making a ship do what you want, hundreds of eyes are on it, peering from afar to see what's going on, scouting you out, trying to take your measure. And, somewhere on this island, likely inside this very town filled to the brim with lowlifes, is none other than Bozo the Robber Baron.

…His name does make him sound like a complete clown, for the record. Just putting that out there.

Stirring awake under the ministration of blood at the hands of Sarah, you don't take all too long to recover full functionality, your dead body reconnecting with the 'you' that goes beyond it with the familiar grace of long practice. You don't even accidentally misjudge your superstrength or anything, like you sometimes do for a few minutes- it's caused a couple accidents before, so you're trying to be careful about that.

In short order you're dressed, your hair's combed through real quick to make sure it sits properly (bed hair is one thing, dead hair is worse) and your shadow's contents are reorganized a bit to make sure you have anything you might need close to hand.

You're basically just about ready for a vampiric workday. Except you take this business a bit more seriously than modern capitalism does, heh. You know, thinking about it, your kind of soul-sucking vampirism is basically communism in some ways, isn't it?

You're really just redistributing the souls of the people, for the people… Into your stomach, that is. Then again, if you liken those souls to wealth or something instead, you're also kind of a walking hyper-capitalist hellhole in another way, huh?

Nice to be two horrible things at once. This is some next-level monstrosity you're putting on here.

Emerging from the depths of the Grand Cruiser, you brush past whoever's on deck, taking a deep breath of the scent of Robber Island. It smells of humans, unwashed ones at that, of the inevitable stink of civilization that doesn't have sewers to jam all the feces into, of tobacco and alcohol and sweat rich in adrenaline.

It's a rough and tumble place just going by what you can smell, is what you're saying. Now, though, it's about to get the Gabe experience, so you expect its scent to change very shortly.

Stretching your neck left and right, despite being as perfectly limber as always regardless, you look out, beholding all that is before you.

"Alright-y then, let's get this show on the road, hm?" You grin at the others, all four vampires presently with you standing or sitting around at the ready.

"Took you long enough, sleepyhead," Kate huffs at you. "I was already thinking you'd just sleep through this."

"Oh, you know how it is with me and copious amounts of murder. Especially when it's actually worthwhile for me."

Sadly, much as you'd enjoy a chance to really stretch your legs and go on a murder spree with everyone at once, you suspect Robber Island here isn't exactly the best place for that; not only is there only so much population to be found on it, meaning the fun wouldn't last long split between yourself and the girls, you also doubt there'll be many combatants actually capable of putting up a real fight here.

Just a thought, but you're pretty sure this island just kind of filters off the weakest pirates that still somehow managed to get on the Grand Line somehow. Anyone actually strong just passes through the hard way and all that.

But ah well, you can just take this as a bit of warming up for the rest of this journey.

Jumping off your ship, you go on to wander straight into Robber Town (yes, that's what they call it, and no, you ain't gonna comment) pointedly casually, approaching the first somewhat rough-looking man too slow to scramble out of your way like most of the people that came to watch the carnage out at sea do. "Hey you!"

He points at himself, puzzled.

"Yes, you. A moment of your time, please?" You ask, grabbing him by the shoulder to turn him around so you can drag him along as you walk. "You see, I'm new in town, just passing through, but I'd like to go meet a certain someone. There's this 'Bozo' guy on this island, I'm sure you've heard of him, mind pointing me in the right direction?"

The scruffy pirate looks left and right, trying to think of a way out of this, but you physically grab his head with one hand, making him look at you as you extend your fangs inside your mouth.

"I'm waiting," you inform him, glints of something sharp and lethal clearly visible in the movement of your jaws.

With a quivering hand, he finally points at one of the larger streets around. "R-right that way, his house is the mansion near the statue… You can't miss it," he says, finding his confidence back as he speaks.

"Gotcha. Guess I'll go see him. Oh, and a quick tip," you smirk at your impromptu guide. "If you have anything you need to settle before your death, I'd hurry it up if I were you."

With that, you leave the confused pirate behind, heading straight towards the place he outlined. And indeed, much like he said, there's a huge statue in the middle of a plaza, depicting a morbidly obese man laughing uproariously at any passersby.

It's made of gold, by the way, explaining somewhat where all the valuables taken by Robber Island go. It also kind of annoys you, so…

The mansion overseeing this part of town is 'creatively redecorated' when the oversized statue is launched straight at it, crashing through at least two walls and heavily wounding a couple people inside. Rubbing your hands clean after your morning cardio, you finally feel nice and awake now.

"Who!" A voice rumbles out of the mildly destroyed building, its sheer volume enough to send anyone still standing around gaping at what you just did fleeing. "Who dares!"

"Over here," you helpfully call out. "Take your time, I don't mind!"

Always nice to work with cooperative food, isn't it?

Bozo the Robber Baron is, much like the statue you repurposed as a ballistic projectile just now depicted him, a very big individual. That is to say, he's easily two and a half meters tall, maybe a little more even, and he's got enough fat on him to make you wonder if normal physics might just make him float in water.

Seriously, the guy's huge. That mansion of his has to have specially-made door frames to let him actually fit through them.

Deceptively quick for his size, he all but bounces into sight in short order, letting you take a look at him through your actual eyesight rather than tracing out the blood running through his body. Wearing a mantle fit for cartoon royalty, red velvet with a trim of white fur, his wild, greasy black hair belies his immaculately groomed beard, a handlebar mustache combined with a stylish braid coming from his chin.

Overall, you aren't really into facial hair or anything, but you can see he actually does put effort into the thing. It works out for him, you guess.

Incidentally, he's only wearing the mantle and a pair of shorts, so you can't really help but see the wobbling bulk of his body. Literally all of it is filled with fat, from his enormous belly and pectorals to his arms, legs and even face. When you called him morbidly obese, you weren't joking, just saying.

Also, he does apparently shave his legs, if nothing else, their everything quaking with every step he takes. Good on him, you guess.

Nevertheless, your deeper insight into the human body's condition, using your various supernatural senses, tells you that for all his fat, the man's got all the muscle he needs to casually move his own body at will. Considering how the physics work out there, you wouldn't be surprised if he could literally take on a bear in a straight contest of strength and win.

That aside, nothing about him feels outwardly different from the normal human baseline. You'll have to see what the Devil Fruit business is about.

Naturally, while you were observing him, Bozo the Robber Baron also had the time to actually see you, immediately drawing a long, but oddly slender sword from his back, the entire weapon looking more like a rapier than the greatsword it is in his hands. Holding it in one hand, he glares you down.

Or, y'know, tries to, considering you just give absolutely zero fucks.

"It's you!" He shouts, only to realize that he doesn't need to and continuing at normal volume after clearing his throat. "I mean, it's you! The dang rascal that tried to assassinate me!"

"Please, that was just a greeting. If I wanted to go straight for the kill, you wouldn't have seen me coming," you wave him off. "Just to be clear, you're Bozo, yeah? The Robber Baron guy?"

"The one and only! And you're… One scrawny little beardless guy, roaharahara!" Laughing weirdly all of a sudden for some reason, Bozo's entire body shakes with the force produced by him doing so.

"I don't see what me not having a beard has to do with this," you note.

"Can't grow a whisker but trying to be a big boy! Roaharahara!"

Okay, so that's just unnecessarily hurtful. Like, not that you really care, but it's the principle of the matter. Even back when you were still alive and physically capable of growing a beard, any attempt on your part to do so just looked really weird and scrawny, you never quite managed to get the volume going you'd need to make it an actually decent one.

"You know what, I'm feeling dumber for every second I waste on this," you sigh, shaking your head. "Let's just get to the part where I murder you, raze this entire island and take all your stuff, okay?"

"Hah! You'll try, and you won't be the first! Robber Island's mine, you can't have any!"

Better get a move on before he decides to try and tell you his whole damn life story or something.

Pretending to actually fight someone is a lot more complicated and, frankly, difficult than you might think, because deliberately holding yourself back can be pretty obvious to whoever you're fighting. It's just in the nature of the beast, as it were.

Lucky you, Bozo here is fucking oblivious, and despite his surprising prowess in battle he fails to really read you. You doubt he's ever really needed to do much of that, with his build and particular strategy in combat, if you can even call it that.

It's somewhere between incredibly stupid and complete genius, in some ways, but what Bozo does comes down to a simple thing. He uses his big-ass sword to charge at the enemy, stabbing it into them or, if they dodge or block it, slash at them as he keeps moving, using his mobility to just constantly attack and get out of his opponent's reach.

You can't really talk, granted, considering your own preferred strategy- get in close, punch someone real hard and make them die. Still, Bozo is going to tire himself out eventually like this, but as long as he has room to maneuver, you doubt the average pirate can really do much about him.

On the other hand, he's not really much of a challenge for you personally, even without bothering to fight back much. You can easily dodge past each of his blows, not even really needing to move much- at the speeds you're used to fighting at, he may as well be moving in slow motion.

Worse, every move he makes is announced by the ripples of his fat, distorted by the even thicker layers of muscle beneath it. And, even worse for him…

You lean out of the way of the sword. Bozo rushes past you for the tenth damn time now. Arriving at the wall of the house behind you, he braces himself against it- and has to dodge out of the way when his weight and strength tears it down entirely, the roof coming down to slam into the area he just stood at.

Yeah. You're wearing your Hamza, the amulet you literally enchanted to make anyone trying to hit you unlucky as fuck.

Watching him try to stay on his feet as he continues to trip and slip on ground that just so happens to be hazardous at just the wrong time and place over and over again gets old kind of fast, though, so you eventually just sigh aloud, scratching the back of your head. "Look, I'm starting to feel kind of bad about this. How about you just pull out whatever your Devil Fruit does and I kill you already?"

"Dammit… Fine, you wanted it this way!" Stabbing the tip of his sword into the ground, Bozo the Robber Baron takes a wide stance, one hand reaching towards you with an open palm. "Ready yourself for the might of my Mythical Devil Fruit! Look carefully, or you may just be defeated before you see what happens!"

…This is totally a trap, isn't it?

"There you go! SPARKLE SPARKLE NO MI! DAZZLING DASH!"

Several things happen simultaneously. One, Bozo lights up like a fucking firework, bright, white sparkles emitting from his skin and burning into the air again and again. Two, he reveals himself to be a lot faster than he was before now, his sword whistling through the air like a heat-seeking missile out for your fucking balls in particular.

Third, and most problematic? You can't look away from the trail of sparkles he leaves in his wake, forced to stay a few moments behind his actual actions. They have some kind of memetic effect- and you aren't immune to it.

You can, however, ignore it with a minimum of effort. Phew.

Letting him come close, you transform yourself, letting your shell's outer layer grow hard and resistant- yeah, you're not taking any chances now, it's full armor mode for a start. Grabbing the sword just as it's thrust at you, you stop Bozo in his tracks, negating his efforts-

"SPARKLE FLASHBANG!" Being subjected to a particularly bright flash of light combined with an extremely loud sound all at once would be extremely unpleasant for most people, and indeed living beings in general. Thankfully, your senses are specifically hardened against these kinds of attacks (thank fuck for the practice you did so very long ago just sitting on concrete in your very first lair), and so you-

This motherfucker, the sword's gone from your grasp and you didn't let go.

"SPAAARKLE!" A dozen voices scream from all around you, each of them identical. "MAYFLOWER!"

Looking around as soon as the light dies down and you can actually see again, an even dozen copies of Bozo the Robber Baron surround you, each of them holding his sword, their skins fizzing and sparking like several damaged electronics.

"Behold! No mere mortal can defeat me! BOZO! THE ROBBER BARON! For I… Am a Sparkle Human!"

"…I'll admit," you say quietly, your voice distorted through your current outer layer of nigh indestructible not-metal you're extruding, your skin fused with the exoskeleton in the form of armor as it is, "I instantly thought that was a stupid gimmick, but you do make it work."

"Roaharahara!" Every time all of his copies laugh at once, their beards twinkle and sparkle, like they're some kind of energy dissipation rods letting off his inner sparkling that just intensifies too much. Or something. "Ready yourself! I shall grant you a sparkling death with my-"

"Did I mention I can see which one's the real you, by the way?" You interrupt him, having traced the path he took by your blood-sight all along, as well as your infrared vision; the copies do give off heat, but they do so inconsistently.

"…Excuse me? They are perfect! I made sure of it!"

You could take your time here to get into Bozo's head, make him doubt himself and his powers, maybe even fuck with him so hard he just accepts his death or something. It's absolutely not beyond the realm of possibilities for you, you'd say. That said, you'll reserve that kind of effort for people you have some kind of personal grudge with for now, you think.

And say about the Robber Baron what you will, beyond assaulting your eyes with his, y'know, fat-rich corpus, he hasn't really done anything to make you hate him in particular.

Basically, it's nothing personal, kid. Speaking of…

You don't bother making any theatre about this next bit. Holding out your armor-clad arms, you let Last Embrace launch themselves out of your shadow, your possibly sentient weapons grabbing onto your forearms and holding on tight; tight enough to break bone and skin, to literally crush rocks.

You're a lot more durable than rock, at this point, but you get the sneaking suspicion they may be irritated with you for waiting until now to let them out to play. That or they're playbiting again. It's hard to tell the difference.

Regardless, you bring up your arms, the bastardized kickboxer's stance you ready chosen more for your personal comfort than anything else, and-

The world slows to a crawl as you pull that little trigger, speeding yourself up in that particular way you do when you just up and tell physics to go shove it for a hot minute. You immediately sprint towards the fat man, running fast enough you're pretty sure you'd be breaking up the ground if kinetic energy worked as per normal for you right now, raising one fist already.

When you punch him, it is a glorious thing, a powerful strike straight to the chest, piercing deep into his body with nothing but your fist- and then Last Embrace fires up the plasma exhaust to your elbow, literally rocketing your arm into him even harder.

Time resumes its normal pace just as you finish admiring the way Bozo's entire body slowly folds in on itself, his eyes bulging out comically as his body catches up to the damage it's currently taking. Then, with an impressive 'fwoomph', he's launched straight off your fist, as if fired by a cannon, ramming straight into the next building over.

Breaking straight through the wall (somewhat of a theme today, it seems), he rolls and tumbles for a moment, coughing weakly despite the hole you just opened up inside his chest. Casually hopping after him, you ready yourself for the good bit here- the part where you grab a damn meal.

"Wh- what… was that…?" The Robber Baron asks, trying to regather himself, push himself back up again.

"I ran really fast and punched you really hard," you helpfully explain. "Now let's put and end to-"

"SPARKLE RE-"

"No sparkles left now," you growl, fully extended claws tearing into Bozo and holding him in place the hard way, teeth ripping through rough skin and thick fat, digging for that juicy, juicy artery you just need to bite open and drink from.

You savage the body in the process of drinking the man's life out of him, excavating chunks of it in the process of actually extracting all the delicious life juice from it. But at the end, well, you get what you came for.

Bozo the Robber Baron is yours, like many before him and many more to come after. And all it took was wrestling to the death with an almost naked, massively obese man.

Fucking Tuesday, eh?

Soul #4050: Bozo the Robber Baron: Ruler of Robber Island, Bozo made a name for himself when he got the bright idea to set up shop on the very first island on the Grand Line his crew sailed onto, having found a Devil Fruit growing on it and promptly eating it. Using his new powers, he fought and killed the rest of the crew, who had been planning on selling it instead, and established himself as the new head honcho.

Massively overweight since birth, Bozo used his surprisingly refined and flighty skill in battle combined with his power to accrue influence, taking in wealth from any that came upon Robber Island and gaining followers from those among them that felt they could or should not go any further along the Grand Line.

Morality 28 Skills Sword 4, Acrobatics 4, Intimidation 4, Organization 4, Gun 2, Cooking 2 Devil Fruit Power: Sparkle Sparkle Fruit A paramecia-type Devil Fruit that grants its user the ability to project sparkles from their skin, from purely cosmetic ones to effective flashbangs. With training, it is possible to advance this power towards causing minor visual illusions, including incorporeal body doubles that may 'discharge' themselves explosively.

Alright, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Bozo is worth the full ten points- he may have been kind of ridiculous, but he was also strong enough to, as a nearly naked, fat man with an oversized toothpick for a weapon, beat any comers that happened upon Robber Island. He really did make it work for him.

BP now at 834

Progress now at 48/80

Sword gains 100xp, already at Rank 8, cannot gain further rank xp

Acrobatics 6 gains 100xp, now at (5330/6000)

Intimidation 5 gains 100xp, now at (3125/5000)

Wiping off a little lard you managed to get on your face, you finally leave Bozo's body behind, its potential uses not worth bothering with right in your own humble opinion. Sure, you could go and reanimate it real quick, but you don't exactly have much use for an extra-sized zombie right now. Instead, you lightly jump up onto the nearest still intact roof, taking a quick look around.

Bozo's memories are… a mix between interesting and utterly irrelevant to you. Most of them consist of just him lazing around, having achieved what he wanted in life right here on Robber Island, that being a life of relative luxury and nothing more. More importantly, you can see how he found his powers- a Devil Fruit, quite literally a fruit randomly growing on this island when him and the other pirates he was with first set foot here.

It tasted absolutely horrible, by the by. You're kind of cringing by secondhand experiencing it right now.

He never really interacted much with whatever lies beyond this island, being completely disinterested in the journey ahead. Instead, he just handed some regular tribute to a few Marines to ensure his little fiefdom wouldn't experience too much trouble from them, had his regular naps on beds made entirely of gold coins and generally lived his best life.

In another world, you might've even gotten along with him. But that's not this world, and this world's not that one. Instead, you head on over towards where the action currently seems to be happening, deserted streets stretching throughout Robber Town (no, you will not comment on the name) in all other directions.

Looks like the others have gone ahead and gotten everything prepared already.

It's always nice to see things going your way, just as a matter of principle. It's even nicer when you don't have to do much work towards this end, so seeing an example of just such a thing happening right now is a welcome sight indeed.

While you were off to deal with Bozo, the girls have been nice enough to take care of herding together the rest of this place's inhabitants, mostly by virtue of methodically shooting up a few areas, driving people into a particular area within the town. Turns out that even hardened pirates are subject to crowd mentality if you just start massacring enough of them, not that the entirety of the population consists of them anyways.

There's also plenty of, well, very much not hardened ones around, which explains why they stopped here on Robber Island, and a surprising amount of actual civilians that just trickled in from one ship or another over time. Turns out there's a surprising amount of traffic on the Grand Line, insofar as it's not a flat 'zero, nada, zilch and nope'.

Surprising, as you said. People moving around with any sort of regularity at all is fundamentally weird.

But that isn't all, actually. Though less sapient animals than humans rarely are worth much, it has been decided- by everyone putting their heads together, mind you, not just yourself- that you may as well make as much use of your limited Big Boy Summoning as you can.

Hence why a thorough wave of hostile crabs, bugs and other assorted arthropod life has been sweeping over the wild parts of Robber Island, chasing any living beings large enough for Taylor to find them straight towards the city in a wild panic.

Animal cruelty? Why, you would never! This is simply enhanced hunting methodology, applicable whether they walk on two, four or six legs. Everyone should try it out sometime. Of course not everyone has a way to immediately take care of all of the balled, braying, maddened creatures trying to deal with everything that's currently happening, but that's hardly your problem, now is it?

Hopping from roof to roof, you quickly meet up with Kate, who unsurprisingly led the charge for your urban operations this time around; Sherrel supported her driving a small vehicle made out of some odds and ends and a few barrels she found in port, but she's really just forcefully clearing streets and performing demolitions to hem in your victims.

This is, like, a big group project, and you're really happy about it. Looking down at the confused, angry mass of people down on street level, you tilt your head left, then right, then left again, pretending to stretch your neck a little (you never need to, but you like to play at mortality sometimes).

"That looks like a lot. I'm honestly surprised there were this many suckers living here."

"Eh, it's a nice enough place, if you ignore the pirates," Kate shrugs, casually raising a pistol to fire at someone trying to escape this situation. What you're looking at is basically a huge, open space created by completely tearing down a couple buildings, then barring any exit or entrance except through a few avenues meant to chase the prey through using the rubble. "Think it's about time?"

"Mhm… May as well, we're well ahead on the timing," you say as another group of angry pirates shows up, pushed into the borderline mosh pit filled with civilians and sailors alike. "One sec."

When the Tree appears, it does so like it always does; a heaving mass of wood and flesh, beating heart revealed momentarily as it materializes in a grand stream of silver mist rushing from your mouth. This time, though, that entire thing happens right in the middle of the fertilizer already gathered up for you, meaning that hundreds of bodies get squished up in the process of flailing roots ramming themselves through anything and anyone around the Tree.

The pumping heart is buried amidst the squelching bodies of your victims, their every body part torn apart in short order as all their blood is sought out and absorbed by the many roots this particular aspect of your subconscious uses to seek out nutrition, massacring the entire population of Robber Island within five screaming, bloody, absolutely hilarious minutes.

Hundreds of them immediately realize what's up and proceed to try and sacrifice anyone in reach to buy themselves some precious moments of life, literally tripping and shoving each other into the approaching roots as they spear through any obstacles in the way and thrust out of the ground, now that they're in position to properly dig at their leisure.

It doesn't really work, of course, but it never gets old seeing grizzled, grown men scream like children while they ram into actual women and children, bowling them over in a desperate bid for escape that will never bear fruit.

Then the animals from all over come in, wave after wave of unwitting sacrifices drunk up by your Tree. You do love it when mass murder is married to pure, delicious utility like this.

In a place that was only a place insofar as the inside of a soul could be, a mountain of fresh produce was taken, used to cook a wide variety of food and consumed just as quickly, a vast quantity of souls used up and recycled in this manner. However, while this was going on, all the many inhabitants of this little layer of limbo went about their own afterlives as well, walking, talking, acting… Mostly talking, though.

So, too, were two particular souls doing right then. Talking.

"I just want you to know you're absolutely insane. That hasn't changed in the least."

"So you said last time we spoke."

"Shut up and let me finish." Uyehara Yoshiake, as he would forever insist his real name was, grumbled to himself for a moment before he continued. "Your plan is complete lunacy and I don't think it'll ever work. But."

"But?" Father Simon Wales asked, the elderly preacher holding his hat in one hand as he regarded his younger 'colleague' with interest.

"But if it does, it's a way for us to make a difference. To have meaning even in here."

"I would argue the things we do and feel and think have plenty of meaning in themselves, whether we are alive or dead. But please, continue," he smiled when he saw Uyehara gear up for another bout of annoyance at the interruption.

"Look, I refuse to let a chance pass by, no matter how astronomically unlikely it is it'll work out. And in case it does, I doubly refuse to let a lunatic be the one in charge how we shape things from inside here."

"Oh, I hardly am in charge, we all know only One is. That is how all of this works. But if you would like to weigh in on our interpretation of things…"

"Just, give me a copy of that book you've been working on so I can point out anything that needs editing."

While you're busy ingesting all the Fruit you've managed to generate by mass-sacrificing the entire island, gorging yourself on the metaphorical bounty to obtain the theoretical power you could have, turning it into the more practical kind you can't help but prefer when given the choice, the rest of the crew is busy doing one of the most important jobs a pirate can do.

That's right, you're having the minions go around loot the everloving fuck out of this entire place, starting with any and all riches stored in Bozo's mansion. The golden statue of him he had put up in the town square is going to take some coordinated lifting on their part, but you're sure the crew will manage with some grit, determination and elbow grease on top.

Looking in on them to see how it's going, you amend at least one of those things for basic intelligence, seeing the minions break the statue apart to transport it easier under the leadership of the one girl you randomly recruited back when you got started. "Work it harder! Just think of all the money this gold will be worth once it's not in this form! Harder, I said! This isn't good enough! I've seen people without the blood oath pull harder!"

""Please berate us harder!""

…Yeah, these guys are at it hard enough for your tastes. You don't even. Literally.

Fleeing the scene before anyone can see you, you return to the port, where the drained, lifeless bodies the Tree sucked dry of all blood are brought by a few of the temporary workers you animated to join your team while you're here- being such a great motivational speaker you can make the dead wake up and perform labor is one of your many strengths, heh.

Necromancy jokes. They never get old. And if they do, they can just die of old age and be brought right back. It's a skeletal conga line over here.

Anyways, the reason you're collecting all the dead bodies barely even needs mention at this point, but yeah, you're stocking up on biomass for your various boat renovation projects and miscellaneous labor needs as usual. You won't exactly be able to actually bring all of the thousands of bodies involved in this little mass murder with you onboard the Grand Cruiser of course, but hey, it just so happens you have a great way to dispose of any surplus on the fly.

"Who's a good Crabken, hm? Who's a good crime against nature, hm? Hmß"

You make the oversized undead abomination gurgle as it proceeds to messily consume a small mountain's worth of dead bodies dumped off the shore by your helpful little assistants. Really, this is the life of a pirate.

You don't spend overmuch time on the island itself, once everything particularly important is said and done; leaving the remaining, menial work to the others (inasmuch as you loan out your undead laborers out for them to control in your stead), you soon head back to the ship, idly thinking about the other pirate ships that got away in the mess of your sudden invasion.

That is, a bunch of them were destroyed in Kate and Taylor's initial strikes while you were sailing into port and even afterwards they didn't exactly let up, but a substantial number of pirates did, ultimately, escape out into the open sea.

Seeing as few of their ships had a Log Pose on board, of course, they're unlikely to ever arrive anywhere and die horribly in the Grand Line's usual bullshit instead- there's a reason you want to either know precisely where you're going or else stay close to an inhabitable island instead, its magnetic fields keeping the weather more or less steady in its immediately surrounding waters- but you'd say at least a couple of them might actually survive to see another island.

Unless you went out of your way to hurry after them instead of looting Robber Town, and to be honest? Screw that. If they'll live, they'll live. And if not, then who cares at all, right? It would just be too much of a hassle to bother with a couple dozen lost souls at most.

You're a big bad vampire boy these days, there's more important shit for you to spend time on. This isn't the you from your early days, when hunting down random Merchant goons from ambush and stealth made for your primary food source- leaving no survivors is a matter of principle now, rather than one of necessity, and you really aren't all that principled at the end of the day.

No, the Grand Cruiser will set sail for the next island down the line in its own time, giving you plenty of opportunity to lie around inertly. Your own Log Pose will need a couple days to reset, to do its thing of tuning into Robber Island's magnetic field like a tuning fork pointing you towards the next instance of some similar field to look for, or however that works exactly- you could look into the actual specifics of it, but honestly?

The way navigation works in this dimension, at least were the Grand Line is involved, is just kind of low-key frustrating you to no end. Better to just not think about it too much and go with the flow until you're sufficiently annoyed to define the whole thing as an actual problem.

A problem that gets solved, that is. With however thorough a solution you come up with, until you're satisfied with the improved state of affairs. Or, heck, just rearrange this entire planet's geography until it makes more sense outright.

…Utilizing the same kinds of space warping bullshit as you have in your base back on Bet could work in theory, but those're more an accidental result of using thousands of Eldritch Cores all throughout the building until they just started to violate reality on their own, then directing the resulting effect. And even that needed the Thinker's help to work out, but if you found a way to do it deliberately…

Well, at least you have plenty to think about while you're busy playing dead very, very persuasively.

Carrying all the loot has the Grand Cruiser sit noticeably deeper in the water, but it's nothing your ship can't handle; never mind the various magical enhancements you added to it, you wouldn't go around constructing anything that capsizes just because of some extra weight, just adapting a preexisting design for the sake of convenience or otherwise.

Your time on Robber Island goes by without much notable incident otherwise, for a given value of 'notable' of course. There is that one ale drinking competition, coming down to the wire at the end while the crew goes through any and all perishables you don't want to bother keeping on board, the great target practice course Kate talks Sherrel and Sarah into helping her set up and of course the War of the Dwarfs, where the three managed to talk Taylor into putting up a gladiatorial death match arena for a bunch of mundane insects.

She agreed, but only after getting them to cooperate in doing the same in bigger. The crew gets to fight mirelurks she creates just for them, which you figure is a very nice gesture, for all that they don't seem to see it that way- turns out being chased around by huge-ass weaponized crawfish claws and getting equally weaponized digestive fluids shot at you from afar isn't everyone's jam.

That said, everyone agrees it's a good time as long as they, personally, aren't in the ring and nobody loses any body parts that can't be regrown with a simple potion, so that's good enough for you. It also does serve as combat practice for that matter, so two mosquitoes are hit by one shoe, as it were.

There's also one Marine ship approaching the island during your stay. It is, in fact, turned into more target practice before it can come close enough to be or do anything more. But hey, if it's a good use for the space-folding fuck-you-cannon Sherrel put together, you aren't gonna complain or anything.

When you finally embark on your journey once more, your special little compass finally realigned properly, you do so with plenty of loot lying around, some new weapons brought aboard the crew found and thought interesting and a bunch of miscellaneous, only slightly used dead bodies just in case you need any later.

Really, you're perfectly equipped for a long journey by now. Nothing could possibly go wrong you aren't prepared to face.

"It's obviously a whirlpool. I mean, look at it."

"Oh shaddup, actually look at the thing. It's not whirling. Ergo, it's not a whirlpool."

Looking through the eyes of the crew, you confirm that whatever lies before the Grand Cruiser, it indeed is not a naturally occurring whirlpool, as the second one to speak up just now argued; whatever it is, it's a giant indent on the surface of the ocean, like an invisible giant was pressing down on it with one finger.

This, obviously, is absolutely not normal. However, it also occupies most of the space between several rocky outcroppings making it hard to move through any way but through this strange phenomenon, almost like a great gorge or canyon carved into a half-submerged mountain range of some sort.

What you're saying is, it would be a massive pain in the ass to find a way around, so sailing right through it is. Letting everyone know, you have the Grand Cruiser forge right on ahead, undaunted by the sheer drop ahead.

"Are we really doing this?" "'Course we are, remember we can dive!" "…Right, I completely forgot." ""Aaaaaaaaaah!""

Turns out this is somewhat of another roller coaster moment fot everyone aboard, a distressingly common phenomenon since you've set sail in this dimension. The moment your ship dips into the massive indent before you, it dips hard, unseen currents taking possession of your course right away and dragging you closer to the center.

In response, you immediately have the Grand Cruiser sink itself before it can be sunk by this obviously unnatural draw, diving beneath the water and taking shelter beneath it. Interestingly, the strange currents, pulling everything straight into one direction rather than swirling in a spiral-like pattern as they would with a whirlpool, don't affect you once you're down here, allowing you to take your time and figure out what's going on.

"We're totally investigating, aren't we?" Sherrel asks in the relative quiet of the lower decks, all but whistling as she works away with a wrench, fastening handmade bits and pieces in place.

"Obviously," Sarah agrees, earning a nod from Taylor and Kate as well.

That cleared up, you head further down, being able to see where the water is flowing now; going deeper and deeper down, it's leading straight all the way towards a section of the sea floor that's been smoothed out, as though prepared as a landing site… And bleached into a slightly greying, off-white color, at that.

More interestingly, it's not the only thing down there that's looking mighty odd. Stretching out from this initial 'point of arrival', there is… a city all in white, with some grey and black mixed in, except it clearly wasn't built by normal means, seeing as most of the buildings have no doors, instead being covered in window after window, the architecture remarkably… blocky, overall.

It's as if an alien giant had put it all together out of irregular, uneven toy building blocks, with no real understanding of how they should fit together or what the real uses of a city require of it. Most of this false city is underwater, of course, but parts of it seems to be somehow protected from it with some sort of force field, and all of it is inundated with an even, bright white light that doesn't seem to be visible from above, masking this place's presence.

It is, in a word, weird. Very, very weird, in fact. It also seems to be completely cleared of any living beings, no corals, fish or even shellfish coming too close to this place.

Some people might prefer to wear diving suits when spelunking through a long-abandoned, ancient false city at the bottom of the ocean. Those people aren't vampires that can easily bear the pressure as is thanks to their insanely durable body structure, courtesy of being some tough motherfuckers (literally so in some select cases) anyways that don't need to breathe either and you aren't going to listen to their concerns.

Honestly, it's really convenient not to share those common weaknesses of living organisms. Undeath agrees with you on a lot of levels and on a very daily basis. Man, imagine actually needing to sleep or some shit!

Sure, you still effectively do it lately, but it's decidedly not the same thing; you remain aware and even capable of purely mental action, you basically just shut down your connection to your body, leaving it around while your 'true' self waits for the moment to bring it right back into action. Very different story to 'I'm just gonna go be unconscious for a third of the day for the entirety of my damn life'.

The crew, of course, needs to remain behind in the safety of the Grand Cruiser, just in case; you aren't about to lug them around when they can't survive under these conditions anywhere near as easily as you do, not to mention someone needs to guard the ship should anything happen. They'll do best right where they are, thank you very much.

"Time for a little expedition then," you grin, hopping off the Grand Cruiser and straight into the ocean water outside the bubble of breathable air it maintains with a last lopsided smile for everyone else. 'Want to split up to cover more ground or do this as a group activity thing?'

'Let's stick together, at least until we see if there's any defenses,' Sarah telepaths into your shared link. 'Suck to get surprised and not have backup nearby.'

'And you just want to cuddle up like usual,' Kate adds with the mental equivalent to a shrugging emoji.

One your sister sends right back. 'Yup.'

Your approach cleared up, you swiftly make your way into this False City, everyone's gait adjusting to walking on this surprisingly smooth, yet considerably stable material the streets and buildings are made of. It's kind of funny to watch for a bit, bit the others adapt relatively quickly, mostly by copying you and your previous experience for this kind of thing.

The blocky, partially blocked-off streets hold no obstacles you cannot easily climb or circumvent, and so you quickly make your way through the scant few nearby buildings that actually seem to have insides you can actually get into without having to hollow them out first, finding them just as bare and empty as everything else nearby. However, as you move deeper into this place, you begin to hear an odd humming in the water, the noticeably different acoustics making it a little harder to figure out what the heck this is.

Still, you're reasonably sure you'll find out in short order. And if you have to actually start to take this entire dump apart.

Incidentally, the material this is all made of? It essentially seems to be some form of silicate-rich super-concrete of some kind, accrding to a quick analysis using Yoshi's powers. No idea how it would've been fabricated, but you can always figure that one out later yourself, or just duplicate it endlessly using a manufactory. In any case you slip a small cube of the stuff into a pocket, having found it lodged loosely into a corner that kept it from getting swept away at any point.

You don't exactly bother to try and map out this entire place, seeing how, well, empty it is for the most part, but this False City you managed to stumble into is at least consistent in its blocky-ness, if nothing else.

Indeed, from what you were able to tell during the Grand Cruiser's descent, it seemed to have a fairly square overall layout, and so with only a little math you can figure out where the approximate center of this whole place would be. Which is, obviously, one place you take a quick look at- if there's any particularly interesting location to be found around here, this is a likely candidate.

Just saying, but it's simply where putting anything actually important would make sense, whatever this place used to be before it was flooded. Or maybe even after, in case the bottom of the ocean is where it's meant to sit.

And wouldn't you know it, you actually do manage to find something interesting! The building at the very center of the False City doesn't look particularly different from the rest of this place, but it's half-covered in some of the force fields you've already noted elsewhere; unusual in itself, those things usually cut through the streets instead of half-covering buildings like this. If you needed any more reason to investigate, you'd have it already just from this.

Waving the other vampires closer, you all spread out to cover the surroundings, more swimming than walking in some cases as you all ignore the water pressure and general conditions here on the seafloor. As before, none of the weirdly, persistently resilient (not to mention sometimes oversized) sea life of this planet can be seen anywhere, both plants and animals avoiding this whole area in its entirety.

Even Taylor's crabs seem somehow uncomfortable, in a way she can't put her finger on but definitely notices, from what she can tell you telepathically. They still work just fine for her, of course, which may be why she's the first one to find the one thing that you were looking for- an entrance.

You'd have just busted your way inside once you figured out there actually is an inside regardless, of course, getting in without possibly damaging anything by accident is always nice.

The entrance in question itself is one of the innumerable windows of this counterfeit city, identical in shape to any of the others you've seen so far, but this one just so happens to be open. Infiltrating the building through it one by one, you and your merry little band take a moment to shake some of the water out as you regather inside, brushing through the force field keeping back the water only.

"Now this is starting to look interesting," you say, taking a quick look around. Not only does the air inside of here taste pretty breathable- you ain't no chemical analysis machine, but the gaseous composition tastes more or less oxygenated enough.

More importantly, this building's floor plan seems to be limited, pretty much, to one large room, though certainly not an empty one. Suspended from the ceiling by large, faux-concrete beams of the same white material as everything else is made of, a large machine hangs half-covered in the force fields crisscrossing all over this location, partially submerged further up along its bulk.

Looking roughly spherical, you can see a lot of heat emanating from this thing, despite its mostly featureless exterior; the faux-concrete had been hiding its heat signature from you from the outside, but it's pretty clearly visible from here. And all around this central machine there's plenty of raised platforms, bearing these almost tablet-like working surfaces aloft on half-made pillars.

On them, a load of buttons are visible. Most of them… don't really have much explanation to them, sadly, as whatever symbols are being used are unknown to you.

"Huh, this joint looks real mechanical-like," Sherrel notes, coming to the same conclusions are you. "Wanna try pressing random stuff until something happens?"

As it so happens, you do have something even better than randomly pressing buttons to bring to the table, here. Of course it's its own question whether unleashing Hack, of all your Semblance-based projections, on this place is the best of ideas, but, y'know… At the end of the day, you very much don't care.

The giggling minion made of your aura and bits and pieces of your subconsciousness doesn't waste more than a few seconds before she disperses straight into the nearest pedestal, trails of her pink, blue and yellow self left in the air as she discorporates into whatever networks of electronics or similar she finds in this whole thing.

"Ooh," a quiet voice chuckles, going loud and quiet and back again like it's coming from somewhere closer or further from you and back again, "what's this, what's this? Is it the life support? Ooooor the security?"

A few moments, seconds, really, of the future flashing across your eyes, you sigh aloud. "It's the security. Don't trigger it."

"…"

"I mean it. Don't," you insist. "We'll get back to that later. Try to figure out what's working in there and what isn't, would you?"

As though to say she's done with that a dozen times over already, Hack does something, making the central generator come to life- it heats up considerably, but doesn't give any indication of its activity otherwise, that is. At the same time, the force fields, interconnected and half inside the building, shift, shoving sea water out and back into the surrounding ocean.

"Reactivated the juice thingy and reconfigured the life support," your minion drawls, sounding so utterly bored you can physically feel it on your skin. "C'mooon, they have ball robots! Robot balls! Balls!"

"…Wait, seriously? We talking, like, ball balls or anatomy balls?" Kate asks. "'Cause if it's the latter, we don't really need more, Taylor's got all the balls we could ever need."

Said girl looks at your girlfriend askance, silently asking 'what the fuck'.

"What? You helped kill Lung and basically joined us on your first night as a cape to go kill a bunch of assholes. You got balls, girl."

"Mhm," you nod, crossing your arms. "I concur, Taylor's got balls. Or guts or whatever. But let's not get caught up in endless stupid wordplay and get back to what we were doing?"

"Gimme 'nother body and I can play again," Hack whines, and if she were physically present beyond the code or gears of whatever machinery she's in right now you could swear she'd be pulling at your arm plaintively. "An' I need more juice myself so I can reset the docking mechanism so the ship can go to the next island!"

"Haah…" Why are some of your minions, parts of yourself really, so damn needy sometimes?

Those 'ball robots', as Hack put it, are… Well, they do live up to the name, at least? Once you have her pull one of them out of storage, at least, after a bit of an operation to try and do so without full-on triggering the defensive systems of this fake city.

Which are a whole 'nother story in and of themselves, considering that strange dip in the water, and the currents drawing in any ships that so much as come close to it, up on the ocean surface? Yeah, those were all caused by this mechanism down here, too, left on some unfortunate settings for fuck-knows-how-long.

Like, you could find out, you just don't bother for now. There's more important stuff.

Such as the robots Hack was talking about, of which there are a few. That is, there's a baker's dozen of the big ones, hidden inside some of the buildings and taking up almost as much space as they do, and dozens upon dozens of smaller, person-sized spherical robots hidden in whatever nooks and crannies they could be stuffed into.

All of them have the appearance of perfectly round, white spheres while in standby mode, but once you create a separate Hack to take control of them they unfold into three pairs of legs, thrusters that let them navigate underwater and a bunch of weaponry, from several cannon barrels to lasers and what you think might be proper railguns, from the looks of it. They're pretty neat little things, is what you're saying, with a single central camera kind of thing that pokes out of their core while they're activated.

The larger versions, of course, are scaled up in all regards, so you're pretty sure they could literally sink entire ships with one shot of their respective main weapons each. At minimum. Destructive testing like that has to wait for later, though, you aren't even sure if you want to keep any of these little bots quite yet.

That's not to say you've gone through all the functions unlocked by your takeover of the central command area quite yet, of course. You've figured out, so far, how to make the entire fake city shift, moving buildings and building blocks around, rearranging the entire topography, reshuffling where everything is as the faux-concrete just kind of reassembles itself in response to whatever mechanism is employed here, and how to redirect the force fields selectively holding out the ocean, as already mentioned.

You can flood parts of the city on demand, or un-flood them in turn, and influence the ocean in a wide radius around the fake city in general, redirecting currents and basically setting up entirely new systems of them from down here. Fun little thing to play around with, and it might just make for a great way to make sea travel along this entire route, up above the underwater gorge the false city's inside of near impossible if and when you want it to be.

Or, y'know, really fucking hard, at least. That's something to work with.

All the… let's say mechanically interesting finds you're making aside, you also do manage, after some probing and no small amount of searching, to find the closest thing to an actual document you're ever going to find down here- an entire wall's worth of writing, in fact, carved into the thing from top to bottom.

Only issue is you, uh, can't read it. Which is weird- you should be able to just read any kind of script used by people around this entire dimension, so you not being able to indicates it's either code, made up to hide the contents of this text from anyone who doesn't know what this cipher's all about, or else some ancient kind of writing that's so rarely understood these days your weirdly particular powers don't quite beam understanding for this crap into your brain.

You actually tested this out, once upon a time- turns out you can't cheat your way into reading and speaking ancient Mayan or some shit like this. A great loss for Cryptic Solutions and its marketing department in particular, you're sure.

But yeah, you have no idea just what the fuck may be written here. "So… Think we should just rub it onto paper and see if we can find someone that recognizes the script?" You ask Sarah and Taylor, the two having come with you to take a look at the flat, white block used to carve this cryptic message into not far from the central command room, displayed out on a crossing of major 'streets'.

"Probably for the best, unless we go and find some library or something with reference works that just so happens to have what we need," your sister argues, visibly annoyed right now. "Or you could give me a little time until my power cracks the code for this thing. It can't be that hard."

Yes, Sarah does, in fact, resent the fact she doesn't know what's written on this thing. You aren't even gonna get into that right now.

"Yeah, let's call that Plan B for now. In the meantime, we'll need some coal and paper, let's do this all archaeologist-style," you shrug, not willing to argue the point right now.

Well, all in all this little find you've made is just as mysterious as it is potentially valuable, if not in the sense of loot as such; there's a remarkable lack of gold and jewelry to be found here, but the intellectual property you can make off with, if you take the time to actually analyze everything, and by the looks of things anyone that would take issue with you doing so is long dead to boot.

Not that'd be deterred either way, but this is, like, literally free real estate you found on the bottom of the ocean. You can't not pull anything and everything potentially useful out of this (literal) dive.

For a start? There definitely is some kind of mechanical computing going on, otherwise the force fields wouldn't be behaving oddly the way they are, moving around seemingly of their own accord whenever you have Hack poke them too much; they're definitely not just put out by some projectors you're shifting around to make them move.

So… Well, it takes some digging, quite literally so in this case, but you eventually manage to open up a chunk of the central command building, clawing your way into one of the pedestals to reveal the wiring connecting everything.

Only, there's none of that, actually. You can't seem to find any actual connections running between things, between the intended user inputs and anything else.

You end up having to do a bit of tinkering, asking Sarah and Sherrel for help and even pulling the Thinker out of your shadow prematurely, the protective case and basic interface her data core is wrapped inside of (she designed it herself, partially basing it off of some of your own original tech) enough to let her more or less act and think as long as she doesn't have to predict more than the next ten minutes of your immediate future or so.

Turns out this place's user interface works off of quantum-entanglement, registering buttons being pressed because their positions in space relative to their immediate surroundings change in a specific way and reacting accordingly. Breaking the pedestal breaks the buttons because the pedestal in itself is, in a way, part of the process, acting as pivotal part of the overall group of particles constantly monitored by the system itself.

…To be honest, this all seems incredibly, unnecessarily over-engineered, even by your standards. Then again, you probably could adapt this whole thing yourself, once the Thinker is done figuring out a way to plug herself into the devices at work here and can just give you the blueprints.

If nothing else, this could work to make horribly overcomplicated remote controls for some of the contraptions you've built so far, from your hotel to the Titan, the literal flying city you constructed literally just because.

Yes, when you say this fake city you've found is putting too much effort into unnecessary stuff? You mean it.

Anyways, you ultimately cobble together a quantum-interference generator the Thinker can work off of for the moment, connecting her to the overall cable-free network present here. It's all kind of a pain to be honest, but as long as all it takes is spitting out your soul-based manufactory to produce the handful of eldritch cores involved, you'll manage, you suppose.

It's certainly a better alternative to leaving Hack to play with this place unsupervised. Speaking of, though, taking apart one of those little robots she's been buzzing around inside of ever since you left her to her own devices is right up on your to-do-list now that this is all taken care of!

There's always a lot that goes into a functioning robot, the whole field of robotics being kind of the culmination of a ton of other disciplines applied in very specific ways, from the engineering that goes into building them from the ground up to the programming required to make them actually move.

Which is pretty dang hard in itself, by the by, there's a reason you never quite bothered with that yourself; the most you did was writing an iteratively self-learning virtual intelligence you threw at various tasks to see how it turned out, because like fuck were you going to make some goofy goober walk on two legs just like that in any reasonable frame of time.

Yes, you readily admit that even the quite possibly degraded, recycled version of the recycled software you just copied for a long time, taken primarily from RobCo and Atomic Industries back on Earth Fallout, were better than anything you could've programmed together at the time.

Manually doing anything like this yourself, programming the full range of behavior a robot might need into it from zero? Yeah no thanks, you'll keep to your preferred methods- just use a VI and make it figure this shit out itself, just correcting it if there's any particularly grievous issues or 'bad habits' it manages to learn itself into, or politely ask an AI to do it for you instead. Much easier.

Sure, there was that one slight issue with runaway VI back on Remnant, but it turned out alright! …Mostly. Hey, it was good enough for you and you could've always executed a hard reset by means of wide-area magic destroying the whole hollowed-out mountain your robotic operations in that dimension were based inside of. The situation was wholly under control all along.

Anyways, long story short, there's a lot of things that go into any level of robotics, so seeing a whole new approach to the whole thing is always quite nice. Now, for starters, these ones are spherical, perfectly round and white until and unless activated so they unfold their limbs and weapons, revealing a sort of inner 'core' containing a lot of important stuff- their power sources, which amount to batteries somehow charged just by being in this area, an inner 'skeleton' allowing them to actually move once active, all that good stuff.

Notably not contained therein is a processor, nor any other kind of visible computing device you can find to be best of your abilities. As you find, once the Thinker can confirm as much, all of that stuff, the intended behavior of these sphere-o-bots first of all, is determined by the central quantum-entanglement network most of this false city's systems function by, as is the energy supply, in fact.

The central reactor-like machine in the command area supplies energy that is then just somehow constantly transferred to those individual batteries, allowing the robots equipped with them to act with impunity while near enough to be accessible by this system and range out for a given amount of time determined by the storage capacity of those things.

It's certainly an interesting mechanism, one that obviously has plenty of applications when leveraged, as this entire place can prove. You don't doubt for a moment that the force fields or the repositioning super-concrete don't draw on it in turn, after all.

But as for the robots themselves, taking their more exotic pieces aside there's still plenty of perfectly respectable engineering to see inside them. Which, really, shouldn't be surprising; they've lasted however long this place has been abandoned, the test of time if nothing else no problem for them.

Admittedly, though, some of your attention, here, is taken up by the particular shapes and design decisions made by whoever built these things. To you, it almost seems like…

"Notification: Multi-functional joints detected," the Thinker informs you from your pocket, the speaker in her core's shell one of the few ways she can easily communicate outside telepathy right now. Hasn't built much of her own infrastructure yet, is all. "Please step back."

Doing as she says, you watch as the robot you were elbow deep inside of just now unfolds fully by itself, the Thinker changing its active mode through the intangible quantum network that's going on all around this place… And then it takes on the shape you were kind of thinking of, when you saw the disparate pieces now shifting to the forefront.

A smooth outer shell remains this thing's most prominent feature, but where before it was either perfectly round or else showing the guns and blades making up its armaments, now it's more of a… curvy story, you could say. A feminine shape now 'stands' before you, well-proportioned legs ending in a smooth bowl of sorts as it balances on parts of its former outsides, and yeah, it's basically a perfectly white gynoid, of sorts.

Turning towards you, this robot under the Thinker's control bows, its wide hips letting it balance easily despite the just as huge tits it's exhibiting. "Whoever built these things, they absolutely had some real fun with them," you remark. It's the only thing you can really think to say at this turn of events.

All the… advances in applied robotics aside for a second (it kind of does remind you of Remnant's mechashift techniques, simply used for something else, really), there's also still plenty of interest to be found in this super-concrete the entire place is made out of. Really, how exactly does making it move around as if by its own accord work?

When activated, the quantum-entangled network controlling this stuff makes the material split off into cubes of a given size, recombining them seamlessly according to the end state desired for it. Which certainly explains some of the irregular road structuring around here, as it seems like the process isn't quite perfected as it is.

That or whoever put this fake city together just couldn't be arsed to be completely perfect with it. To be honest, you sympathize if that's the case- you don't need to be perfect more often than not and trying to be takes more effort than it's really worth. Perfect being the enemy of good and all that.

Anyways, performing further analysis, you don't take all that long to figure out this stuff somehow uses the silicate it's notably full of to spontaneously form some form of circuits the moment it's 'activated' and starts to just somehow move itself, the energy generated without any visible input for it.

Suffice it to say, you wanna figure out more. Sadly, you doubt you'll be able to do so on the fly, so it'll be a bit of a longer project for you. Luckily, though, you happen to have a ship and the ability to just keep on researching even while you're asleep, so…

Well, you have a whole crew's worth of minions, may as well make them work for their keep and mine out a couple cubes while you have them here already, right?

"One, two! One, two! One, two!" "Pull! Puuullll!" "Man, who knew picking up those pickaxes would come in handy now of all times?"

Yes, you basically turn a small section of the false city (really more the corner of a building, to be entirely honest) into a quarry for weird super-concrete. Only partially deliberately so- you just told the crew to try and extract a few blocks, you never expected them to turn around and be all professionally about this. Complete with organized work lines, well-tied rope to pull the blocks towards the ship in lines of working men reminiscent of some, like, Egyptian slaves building a pyramid and everything.

…You decided to just leave them to it in the end. Yup, you don't see any problems here.

Of course with all these advances in the field of 'driving the crew like miners in a quarry', you face another liiitle bit of an issue, what with the natural end result of this series of events. That being, having to find a place on your ship to actually store all of the silica-concrete now brought aboard. Can't exactly just be putting it down on deck and call it a day, after all.

…Okay, maybe you could in theory, the stuff is heavy enough it shouldn't be easy to move around all that much and just tying it down should do the trick well enough, but in practice… Well, you've basically turned sailing into rollercoaster rides often enough so far to know better than to expect you won't need to repeat that particular performance anytime soon.

And if riding a literal tsunami was mildly disorienting for everyone aboard as it was, you don't want to try out doing it again with several tons of super-concrete smashing half the crew clean off the ship. Just saying.

So, yes, you need to figure out how to stow this stuff away while you tinker around with it. Easier said than done, however, when you've already kind of filled the cargo capacity up with a bunch of random crap gathered here and there so far.

You just knew that gold statue of the sparkly fat man would come back to haunt you sooner or later. It's been broken up to make it easier to manage, of course, but it's still pretty bulky, not at all helped by the actual man's actual bulk so faithfully reproduced in it.

It,,, might be possible to fit everything down here, but it would be a tight fit indeed. Could well be you'll have to dispose of some of your loot at some point to make more space. Or it would be a very real possibility- if you didn't have an ever-reliable, awesome, magnificent Tinker like Sherrel along for the ride able to help you out of this incredibly tight spot (heh) by installing more of those spatial loops she's kind of been doing a lot of to just give you more space wholesale.

"Yeah, yeah, flattery'll get you far enough I'll do it. Just for yer cute face," the bombshell of a Tinker agrees with a smirk and a shake of her head.

Personally, you think you're more handsome than cute, of course, but hey, you'll take it. "Much obliged. Really, if I had any idea how much loot we'd pick up, I might've just taken a different stance on teleportation in the first place."

It's always funny for just how granted you take things once you've grown used to them. Case in point, making logistics laughably easy by way of just 'porting whatever stuff you need wherever it's needed at any given time. Man, but wouldn't it just be convenient to just leave a warehouse full of loot somewhere secure, such as right here at the bottom of the ocean, and never have to bother with this stuff again?

Not that you're about to change your mind just like that, mind you. It'll take a lot more than a mild logistical annoyance to get you to drop that limit on modern tech.

…Such as a middling annoyance, at the very least. You're stubborn, not principled.

"Yeah, yeah, I got this soon as you give me the materials," Sherrel waves you off, causing you to promptly disgorge the silvery mist of your manufactory, the heavy machine neatly fitting against the floor of the cargo compartment. "Thank you~!"

Kissing your cheek, the blonde gives you a forceful pat on the back- a shove for anyone not anchored to the ground at all times the way you are thanks to the power to just adhere to things.

"Now get going and spend some time with Taylor, 'kay? Girl's too shy to ask for it on her own."

Outside the ship, you find Kate and Sarah giving Taylor a quick pep talk amidst the lifeless white and grey of the cityscape you're currently parked inside of, not even bothering to try and disguise what they're doing. And, truth be told? You're glad everyone's going out of their way to actively include the others, especially the ones that need some help with it, in your activities.

As such, stepping off the Grand Cruiser's deck and floating down gently, as if you were underwater already, you reach a hand out for Taylor. "Want to go for a walk?"

Expression not moving a single inch, the cute, slender mass murderer you just love to have at hand nods. "Anything that gets me away from the others right now."

"Ah, they put it on a little thick?"

"I don't need 'advice' for how to get you to pay attention to me. I can just tell you to."

"That you can, that you can," you chuckle, the two of you slowly moving straight towards the edge of the force fields keeping the ocean out of the city. "Most people like to overcomplicate these things a lot, don't they?"

There's a reason you get on surprisingly well with her.

Being underwater like this, miles and miles beneath the surface, the quiet of the depths now that sound travels just so much shorter distances is almost peaceful, the pressure not so much suffocating or oppressive as it is a nice, steadying feeling on your shoulders, almost making you feel a little like you used to, in those times when you were all human and subject to the same old issues that come with it.

It feels like it's been ages, despite really only being a few years. Less, if you don't count the time you spent in vampiric hibernation.

The environment is oddly pleasant to you, is all you're saying. So much so you actually, actively enjoy your little walk with Taylor, holding her hand and all like some real gentleman. Along the way, you even go ahead and try using some of your cryokinesis to, pretty much, reach out and solidify some of the water around into pleasing shapes as you go.

It's actually kind of difficult, insofar as detailed work tends to be a bit of an issue under all this pressure; you have to keep things at least somewhat thick enough to withstand the environment, just for a start. Then again, actually doing details usually takes you a few moments, as your control over this power is a little bit limited- if you want really good ice statues, you have to take a moment to work on them anyways.

No instant art for you. Then again, 'instant art' sounds kind of fucked in a way in itself, so maybe that's for the best; having to put at least a modicum of attention and care into what you're doing probably isn't the worst thing when it comes to this stuff.

Regardless, for all that it takes some effort, you do manage to craft a rough replica of none other than Taylor herself as you go along, dragging your work with you as you compare it to her. It eventually takes on her features, from her slim, sleek body type (that nevertheless has all the curves she needs to be both cute and sexy in her own right) to her expression, slightly wider mouth drawn into a little frown that just serves to make her look good despite herself.

Vampirism really did agree with her, in retrospect, though even before you got to her she had that kind of… future sexy librarian look going, if you had to put it into words. Not necessarily classically appealing or anything, she wasn't quite a ten out of ten by any measure, but she had potential.

Now of course she can have anything she wants, because vampire, and what she wants to be just so happens to be all kinds of interesting to look at, from several angles. You do try to reproduce as much in your life-sized statue of her, frequently reaching out to cup her chin and look in her eyes so you can get it down right.

Naturally, this work of art you're creating doesn't waste any time with such frivolous things as 'clothing', and so before long you're taking Taylor's clothes off her one by one, something she reciprocates to by pulling your own off as well, the soaked cloth (and silk, in her case) left floating to the ground in your wake. Using this excuse for foreplay for all it's worth, your hands slide all over her body, from the nape of her neck to the curve of her waist, everything in-between and more.

Neither of you bother with words in this quiet place the bottom of the sea. Instead, you simply feel each other up, letting your eyes and your hands do the talking in these lightless depths, and before you even know it you're kissing, ice statue left adrift by the wayside.

You're outright and unhesitatingly groping Taylor now, her cute ass mauled by your hands, her frame almost swallowed by yours despite her height, which is just right to be comfortable kissing her like this. Wrapping her arms around your shoulders, the dark-haired brunette pulls herself up against you, happily rubbing her front against yours, and without further ado you step over to a nearby rock formation jutting outside the underwater canyon you're in to brace her against.

Once a briefly clawed hand scratches away any particularly pointy bits, of course. She'd be fine either way, but it's the thought that counts.

Gently pressing her soft butt against hard stone, you take a moment to grope her breasts, each filling one of your palms nicely, and stroke down along her body again, across her lightly muscled belly, your thumbs passing over it nicely, all the way to her thighs, now spread for you to give you access to her hairless pussy.

Of course while you were doing that, Taylor was in turn busy groping you as well, meaning she's currently pumping a slender hand up and down your cock, demanding eyes telling you exactly what she wants you to do with it. And, well, never let it be said you're one to disappoint a lady...

Angling your hips real quick, you thrust right away, smoothly spearing straight past her folds and into her core, penetrating her with your entire length to fill out every inch of her you can. Locking up for a brief moment, she pulls you closer even as you begin to pound into her, the delicious tightness of her pussy pulling you in as though hesitant to let go every time you pull back.

Quick confession, kissing underwater is a little weird because of all the water getting in the way, but yeah, you think you make it work alright. You don't hammer into her frantically, for now, nor do you keep yourself all that slow, simply fucking Taylor against that piece of rock at a steady, even pace, her hair floating around a bit as she just enjoys the experience as much as you do.

Some deep gazing into each other's eyes may be involved here, too. As well as you holding her hands, fingers intertwining as you make sure she's nice and steady. Nothing worse than having sex only for one or both participants involved suddenly sliding off and away- you're speaking from experience here.

It's hard to tell the time this far down, so it's hard to guess how long you stay like this, holding Taylor's hands and screwing her, if not silly, at least thoroughly, but eventually both of you wordlessly agree to come at the same time, your seed filling her depths and pulsing straight up against her womb, making her shudder nicely under you.

It goes without saying, but this isn't the last time either of you will reach your peak down here.

Embarking from the False City feels almost a little wrong, in some way, like you should be staying here for a while on principle alone, studying the fuck out of this place and only leaving once you've clawed any and all secrets out of it you can.

Maybe it's just your inner completionist speaking. Heck, it probably is, even. But with the Thinker leaving a quickly made copy of herself down here to try and take control over the city's systems, you shouldn't really have any problems coming back, should the need arise; with a teleportation beacon installed down here, but left inactive just in case anyone or anything on this planet can detect and follow its signals, all you'd need to do to return in a hurry is to ask this copy to turn it on via telepathy, as long as you've got a teleport machine up and running yourself.

You, in the meantime, have some other business to attend to. Having been sailing around in this dimension for a little while now, you'd like to think you're getting a bit of a grasp on what's what, who's who and how's how, insofar as a literally insular collection of mini-societies like what you've seen so far allows.

From what you can tell, there genuinely are some actually strong people around- as an example, that Robber Baron guy you ate might've even been a challenge, if a mild one, had you not a small collection of powers and invulnerabilities shutting down his entire power set. Really just his bad luck he'd eventually run into someone that can't be blinded nor fooled with visual illusions the way he tried to pull.

However, that was a great way to illustrate how some of the locals are significantly stronger and, well, fundamentally superhuman than you may expect, taking assorted strange mutations in terms of body size and muscle density aside for a moment. Devil Fruits really do serve to just kind of juice individuals up to a significant degree, essentially making them the equivalent of capes for all intents and purposes.

To be honest, you kind of suspected they might be some Cauldron thing for a while, powers in a vial and all that. Then you ate Vovo and Bozo and could confirm, about as accurately as you possibly could, that Devil Fruits are literal fruits and all, letting you come to the conclusion that they're probably different things entirely, sure, but the comparison remains.

…Unless they tried to make their product somehow more appealing to the wider market for some reason, but you're fairly sure your co-conspirators over at Cauldron aren't the type to try. Not, like, a hundred percent, but somewhere around the ninety-eight marker for sure.

Anyways, Devil Fruits are some seriously good shit, and while you've been hesitant about just taking a vial yourself to date, what with having a Passenger in your head forever, it'd probably be perfectly fine to eat one of those things.

Not to say anything against things inside your head, mind you- you basically share headspace with your family anytime you're so much as in the same dimension as any of them and you're perfectly happy with that, heck, many of your wives, girlfriends, sisters etcetera are parahumans and all, you'd just generally prefer not to put anything or anyone you don't know or trust into the position of growing anything inside your brain.

Call it professional distrust, but you don't like having other people putting stuff inside your skull. Sure you can just regrow anything you lose, but it's a matter of principle at that point.

Issue with your newfound desire for, indeed, eating one of the worst-tasting things in apparent existence is that Devil Fruits? Are pretty fucking rare, of course. Actually finding one is going to be a serious challenge, not to mention then also looking for one that specifically augments your abilities, rather than just giving you some power that you already have in some form anyways.

Just saying, but you're pretty sure you'd have been able to copy, say, Bozo the Robber Baron's sparkle-centric powers using your illusion magic, if you really wanted. Maybe you'd need some practice, but everything he did should be doable like that. And as for Vovo, you've literally got transformations out the wazoo as it is already- sure, maybe you can't exactly replicate that slime she could excrete all over her body, but your various kinds of venom as a snake do the trick just fine if you ever need any.

Not that you usually do. To be honest, some creatively applied direct violence usually does the trick for anything you need done. But yeah, if you really think about it, finding a Devil Fruit that actually adds to what you can do is… probably pretty hard, as is. Luckily, you do have a way around trying for it blindly.

Because of course you do. Having tons of powers and shit comes with some serious advantages when you actually get to use them, just saying.

The question you need to ask itself obviously needs some careful thought, though in the end you decide to just go with something that hopefully can't go wrong without limiting the search results too much. Having access to what amounts to a cross between a search engine and some deep cosmic insight into this construct of physics you call reality, it always feels a little weird to think of it as something separate of yourself… But well, here goes nothing.

Sitting in your captain's cabin as the Grand Cruiser prepares for takeoff, you activate the magic, feeling how the veneer of distance between yourself and yourself shrinks moment by moment, until it's thin, so thin it might be punctured with an errant movement while still being so tough it can't possibly ever be penetrated.

The exact mechanics escape yourself still, but for the moment you're kind of assuming you're just… using that self you were between dimensions, always have been in those moments and maybe are even now, to feel along reality and glean some bits of information, distilled into something workable for this you.

"Where can I find," you say, each word enunciated with the care it deserves for something you won't be able to attempt again for a whole-ass week, "a Devil Fruit that will suit me well?"

It's a bit like looking something up on the internet, except the internet is aware of your circumstances and takes them into account as it considers your query. In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense as an explanation for how this particular kind of divination works, not that you can be quite certain until and unless you eventually become somehow conscious of yourself in your entirety.

Anyways… For some reason, it takes your Cosmic Guidance a little longer to get back to you with a response, but after a few seconds of waiting, as if some abstract force was hurriedly putting everything back to how it's meant to be in the background and holding up a finger for you to wait until it's done, you get what you were waiting for.

An almost three-dimensional map manifests itself inside your mind, detailing where to sail from your current location at what speed, to arrive at a particular place at a particular time. It doesn't tell you what to do, once there, just to step out on deck and 'look up'.

You know what, you'll take it. Trusting a vague sense of guidance when you had no idea where, exactly, it came from was doable enough, now that you've got at least somewhat of an idea you're sure not gonna stop.

It's a couple days later, your course spontaneously changed from what it should be according to the Log Pose, an act that may well be described as suicidal for many a ship manned by many a crew sailing these oceans. Those crews do not have magic to guide them and their opinions are worthless on your ship, where as a matter of fact you are the captain.

Which comes with a lot of meaning and expectations attached. As long as you're at sea, you're essentially the equivalent of a king- your word is law, your decree inviolate. Nobody on board has the authority to countermand the captain, because that's just how it has to be- without a clear, and quite rigid, hierarchy and separation of tasks, as enforced by the captain's authority, a ship is less a vessel for travel across the ocean and more a potential death trap.

There's a reason the position carries a lot of responsibility and associated, absolute authority when on the move. It might also explain why so many pirate captains are so… eclectic, from what you've been able to hear about other pirates so far. Not that pirates necessarily care about these kinds of things in the first place.

Regardless, you spend most of the travel time asleep, as per usual of late, but as you draw closer to the exact location indicated by your Cosmic Guidance, you eventually get Sarah to wake you up once again (she got cute with you about cuddling with your corpse a little while longer- you'll let her get away with it for now, but if she keeps this up, she may just require some correctional spanking of the fun kind at some point). Wouldn't do not to follow the very simple instructions you were given when you asked for something, after all.

Coming out on deck, you look up, thinking of telling those among the crew present that something's about to go down- and instead you notice that a small, relatively light object is currently in free fall straight towards your face!

…Well, you have plenty enough time to actually reach up and catch it, what with the early warning your gravity sense gives you, but still.

Snatching the thing out of the air with one hand, you take a closer look at it right away. Kind of shaped like a pear, this thing's pretty clearly a genuine Devil Fruit, the swirling patterns covering every inch of it corresponding with what you know of the ones other Devil Fruit users you've eaten ate. that aside, this thing's pretty… Well, bright yellow, and covered in these deformed, jagged protuberances looking kind of like illustrated lightning or something.

Heck, even the stalk it's still hanging on kind of looks like that. This thing's very clearly going for a theme here. Honestly, if you didn't know this was a Devil Fruit, you might even say it looks kind of tasty…

"Whoa, did the Captain just randomly catch a Devil Fruit out of the air?" "Still can't believe those things are real." "The heavens obviously favor the Captain above all else. How else do you explain this kinda luck?" "All hail the favored son of the heavens!"

"If I was favored like that, I'd bet I could get a Devil Fruit that doesn't taste like the absolutely most horrible shit imaginable," you comment, still hesitating a moment. Look, you've literally lived through the memories of people that ate ones before and, while the data pool is a bit sparse on that front, you're pretty sure it's no coincidence both of them wished they'd died rather than eaten theirs right afterwards.

It's really that bad. You can generally ignore or lower the sensitivity of your senses, but…

"Ah screw it, here goes nothing," you say, your teeth sharpening as you raise the lightning-pear towards your mouth, taking a deep bite-

You regret everything.

From all the possibilities you imagined when you envisioned yourself gaining some quirky power by eating a funny fruit (if one that's absolutely horrible in taste), this wasn't necessarily what you were thinking of, originally. Not that you're complaining, mind you- it's actually really cool.

You still take a few minutes to come out of the corner you chose to roll up in after the immense… experience of actually eating the thing, even with your sense of taste deadened considerably the moment you realized just how bad it was in person, when your teeth pierced into the yellow skin's swirling patterns. To be honest, you don't think you've ever eaten anything comparable in taste, once again showcasing just how blessed of a life you've lived.

Even when you were a kid and nobody at home really cared about you, you always could bum a meal off of one of the girls in class. More often than not, that worked out pretty well to keep you fed, so you never really had to resort to learning to cook on your own or anything.

Until you ended up just kind of doing it on the side later on, after you began to gain memories of people that did cook themselves, not to mention all the memories of meals your many victims can recall in clear, vivid resolution giving you plenty of motivation to try your hand at creating all kinds of food yourself. But let's not get sidetracked once again on some tangent barely related to what's at hand.

Having consumed a Devil Fruit (a single bite is enough apparently, so that's a relief at least), the power you have gained is immediately obvious to you as you push yourself back on your feet, resolutely determined to pretend nothing happened between you doing so and now. Raising your hand, you continue to ignore the majority of the crew gathered around pretending not to be watching you right now, instead focusing on what's up with your body.

Sparks immediately begin to fly from your fingers, electrical discharges snaking from your skin and returning to it too fast to see clearly at normal human speeds. Curling your fingers, you let this new phenomenon grow, increasing in strength and range, until a small thunderbolt dances up above your palm, waggling in the air.

""The Favored Son Of The Heavens!"" "All hail the Young Master!" "Are you guys okay? Did I miss anything?" "Ignore them, they're just on a weird power trip again."

The peanut gallery is its usual self, but you just let them be- they'll shut up soon enough. Especially so when, with a look upwards at the slightly cloudy sky your Devil Fruit came from, you decide to try something.

When lightning impacts your arm, flowing into it and being sublimated into your flesh instead of impacting the ship directly with a crashing, air-rending thunderclap, they literally can't keep on talking- it's simply too loud. You, on the other hand, just leave them to either stare in awe or throw themselves behind cover in panic, too preoccupied rotating your shoulder and considering what just happened.

Turns out you're an electrovore now, too, huh? You know what, why not. You'll take it. Especially when it seems to just be a side effect of your real new power, lightning surging under your skin, flesh and bone and organs simmering in barely restrained electric potential.

Bozo knew about this- a Logia, a particular kind of Devil Fruit that allows its user to turn into some kind of element in the natural world. Very powerful. Also very rare. Well, that just goes to show you're a really great pirate; finding extremely rare treasure probably comes with the job description after all.

It's a pretty weird feeling, to be partially made out of electricity like this. Not only can you push lightning out your ass now, you literally consist of the stuff, in some ways, to the point it's already a little hard to remember how it felt like not to.

Emitting little lightning bolts from your fingers is the least of the applications, of course. Having experimented a bit, you can already tell that you've just become significantly harder to actually hurt, as you can simply turn into lightning whenever anyone so much as tries to scratch you. Of course actually getting used to making this switch in full does take a little getting used to- it's not actually hard by any means, you just have to make the switch inside your head on how to respond to being attacked.

Kind of like unlearning a habit by replacing it with another one. Where before you'd be throwing yourself out of the way, pulling some cover between yourself and an attacker or just launching into retaliatory gratuitous hyperviolence on the spot, now you can just let things pass right through you- much like you ignore gunshots aimed at yourself on principle and have been for a while now.

All it takes is being at least vaguely aware of incoming attacks, which is where the 'getting used to' part comes in. Which isn't to say you aren't doing anything else with this, mind you, it's just the obvious first order of business in order to maintain your peak efficiency in a fight.

Nothing's more hilarious than casually no-selling everything someone does so you can hit them in the face hard enough to make their skull explode. Not that you couldn't have done this beforehand, but now you can do even easier. Or, more importantly, you can simply ignore your enemies for a moment to go ahead and cast magic out in the open, which is something you've generally avoided throughout your various careers; it's never worth it to just straight up let someone get in a cheap shot because you're preoccupied playing with the fundamental laws of physics, especially when you have plenty of better ways to deal with them in the moment.

In theory, you should be able to do a lot of cool shit, once you have the prerequisite practice down; split off parts of your body as long as they're connected by electricity, regrow parts of yourself even quicker than ever before, call down lightning with instantaneous levels of ease and, of course, go from having a built-in joybuzzer in both palms to blasting ridiculous amounts of electricity in all directions whenever you want.

…Actually, you probably can translate at least some of your already existing inherent bio-electrical power into this whole thing, can't you? Time to go test some more-

A bullet approaches your head, your instinctive reaction being letting it bounce off while you identify where it comes from. Your more conscious, less dumb animal response is to override that instinct by letting it actively pass through your skull instead, exiting out the other side, while you quirk an eyebrow at Kate.

"Hey, you were thinking about it," she shrugs, waving the revolver she just used to shoot you in the head in the air. "'Sides, not like this could actually hurt you or anything."

"I'm not complaining, I'm just saying I'll be annoyed if you damage any of the ship behind me," you tell her, arms crossed. "Repairing any of the non-meaty bits is going to be a massive pain as it is."

Look, you have priorities, and neither you nor Sherrel will stand for unnecessary damage to your sweet-ass ride. Kate just has to respect that sometimes.

In a certain slice of literal afterlife, one could find quite a lot of varied landscapes if they were willing to put in the effort to look. Sure, most didn't- the bloodstained Maids around could bring you anywhere you really needed to go easily enough and that was all the average lost soul in there cared about- but the possibility was there.

It went from ancient ruins, where many important locations were so most of them were familiar with the area anyways, to forests lush, wintry and curated, to hidden chasms deep underground and nigh unreachable peaks stretching up towards the sky and everything imaginable in-between.

Or, a certain Vovo thought to herself, at least she hadn't yet found anything she could think of she couldn't also find here. Which was good, really. Her retirement, violent and unwanted as it might've been, had been long overdue by this point, so wandering around the endless vistas of this fugue place as she remembered the travels of her youth was probably a better option than some others out there.

Right now, she was lounging on a folding chair she'd found in some dusty chamber in the ruins, sunning herself in a quiet part of the desert. It was big enough few would be able to find her here and there wasn't much wind anywhere, so once she'd found herself a nice dune, all she had to do was get comfortable and enjoy.

It was getting a little hard to remember which of her foster sons had been which, but she was fairly sure it was the second-youngest Moqueca's father that would be calling her a 'shriveled old lizard' if he saw her like this. Heh. He'd always been a brat, so unlike his son…

All in all, it was nice, here. Her old bones weren't aching anymore, the constant pain she'd picked up sometime after she hit a hundred years or so gone the moment she died, so maybe it really just was better than she would've gotten otherwise. 'Course she would kick the shit out of the fuck that'd put her here, for principle's sake after he'd also killed her son, but that was all purely theoretical.

Unless she found some way to give him indigestion from in here. That would be a nice way to go, even if it meant being shit out afterwards.

"Grandma Vovo! Grandma Vovo, there you are!" Speak of the damn devil, huh?

Groaning like she was still feeling the gnawing of old age, she pulled herself out of her seat, grumbling a she waited for her former charge to approach. "How'd you even find me here, meu filho?"

"You always liked to rest in warm, high-up places, grandma," her little Moqueca (and he was still little, no matter if he also was twice her size now) said, gesturing around the dune she'd found. "I just started at the desert town and looked around from there."

Damn brat. He knew her way too well- she'd been looking for the highest dune to sit on, so he wasn't even wrong. "Well, what'cha want? Can't you see I'm finally enjoying my damn retirement?"

"Grandma Vovo, you aren't the kind of person that can relax," her brat of a grandson pointed out. "I just wanted to ask if you'd like to come to the council meetings or maybe just dispense some advice for everyone. The wisdom of your age would be wasted if you didn't use it."

"Maybe I am using it, did'cha think of that, hm?" She huffed and puffed, flicking grains of sand around with her cane as she limbered herself up again. "Maybe the wisest thing ta do right now is to do nothing at all, huh?"

"Grandma… That's not how that works. It doesn't matter what we do, he can see what we think and what we would do no matter what," Moqueca XXII said, the laugh lines on his face straining a little as he maintained his smile. "So we may as well do whatever we want instead of languishing like this. This isn't you and it bothers me that you aren't living your best afterlife."

Clearly, this brat was thinking too much, hm? "You're a hundred years too young to be concerned about your elders, boy," Vovo grumbled, stabbing her cane straight onto his foot like she'd always done when he really needed a reminder of who'd wiped his shit when he was a newborn. He bore it without a single twitch. "Fine. I'll come with ya, but if'n anyone has an issue with me they're getting an earful, you hear?"

"I wouldn't have expected anything else, grandma," he smiled, holding out a hand to help her walk, just like he'd done when she realized he was all grown up already, a proper gentleman despite loving the dance too much to favor the women. She'd stabbed his foot back then as well, thinking back on it. "Come, let us return to everyone else from Samba and dance to celebrate our reunion!"

Some people got changed in death. Others became even more like themselves. "Don't expect my old bones to be swingin' too wildly boy," Vovo grumbled, already knowing she'd end up going along with it despite herself. "An old fossil like me's got an image to uphold, yannow?"

Sometimes, you do wonder whether the souls you've eaten actually can influence your own behavior, especially ever since Samba Kingdom; there's nothing all that overt, but you have recently found that you kind of tend to move with some more rhythm any time you don't think about it too much, tapping a toe or finger subconsciously or just keeping a bit of a swing in your legs and your hips and your shoulders as you move.

Then again, it's probably just those idiots spending half their waking days dancing to one song or another, having actually made use of the Facilities to build their own instruments and now making their own music. The Workshop has been used by various souls, on occasion, it being one of the more direct ways to create stuff that actually lasts in there if left unattended for a while, but before these recent additions it was mostly used for random shit someone got it in their head to try and build.

The most notable results, you suppose, were a few of those movable, blank puppets art students use to test out poses and stuff, and a small collection of various, surprisingly creatively-built sex toys, from simple dildos made of perfectly smooth, polished wood to actual vibrators and stuff.

The laboratory does allow the Workshop to go the extra mile, you suppose. But where before, a few souls good with their hands produced a few pieces of interest for others, causing a small barter economy based on whatever notable objects they've managed to produce to spring up, Samba Kingdom's officials actually have some knowledge around how to construct instruments and why, so that's a whole thing now.

All that in mind, the end result of this whole situation is that you've got what may be considered a whole-ass festival going on inside you at pretty much all times, where music is made, the souls of the dead dance however long they want to get lost in the beat and the rhythm, physical exhaustion not factoring into what they do much anymore. And in some ways, that reflects on yourself as well, seeing as there's so many of them that are joining and dropping out and overall keeping their total numbers to an equilibrium, more or less.

It's probably just you being inside all of their heads all the time, their thoughts and emotions as much a part of you as the individual cells making up your biological body. And consequently trickling into your subconscious. Or it could just be the experiences you directly absorbed from them, assimilated into yourself proper if there's any differences between these things in the first place.

Sadly, while taking your body apart to look at how it works on the inside is perfectly doable, what with your regeneration letting you just ignore most medical issues doing so should cause, doing the same to your soul (or whatever it is you have that's roughly equivalent) is a lot harder to do, so you end up with more speculation for these kinds of topics than you'd like.

Well, increased feel for rhythm or not, everything else is running about as smoothly as you could want. The Grand Cruiser makes good time as always, cutting through the waves with the stubborn determination of a thing that should be dead but just isn't, leaving the crew to do whatever it is they do when you don't need them to do any minion work around the place.

Mostly meaning they're lazing around, practicing with whatever weapons they've picked up or doing some minor maintenance; the ship can pilot itself just fine and things don't tend to break on it, but someone still has to swab the deck on the regular and all that.

Meanwhile, Taylor continues to live her best life diving around the ship here and there, using her additional bodies to explore underwater at her leisure when she isn't hanging around aboard, silently chatting with other others when they're similarly just hanging out. Kate has taken to teaching the crew how to actually shoot guns properly, meaning she basically help a short course on which end of a pistol to aim at where you want to shoot and how to hit a given target over a short distance.

Sarah continues to cuddle up to you whenever you aren't actively training with your new powers, electric light cast from your body as you make it a point to get a grasp of the basics of the basics for Logia fruits, so nothing much new there. That said, when you are doing so and the static messes up the fur of her ears and tail, both of which she's happily letting out, she instead spends time with Sherrel, who's been taking it increasingly easy as her pregnancy is starting to really show.

Like, she could hide it, but the baby bump's pretty obvious with the belly-free outfits she tends to favor. And seeing how she isn't exactly changing those preferences, yeah, your youngest child is visibly well underway at the moment.

You'll have to make sure she doesn't overdo it for a while, of course. Yes, vampires are remarkably resilient, even unborn ones, but it's still about as vulnerable as they can possibly get. And you'd literally have to raze this entire planet to the bedrock if anything happened.

Wouldn't that just be a shame. So much effort wasted on a place that already pissed you off to the point there can be no possible use for it left nor would any potential amount of life developing on it be permissible… You'd have to curse the damn rock left after you vaporized the ocean to ensure as much.

A lot of time and energy you'd spend so… unnecessarily. Yeah, a pound of cure and an ounce of prevention and all that.

Speaking of ensuring Sherrel takes it slow though, the Log Pose you've been following all this time has finally brought you to the next island in line on your journey. It's already visible in the distance, the worst of the random weather behind you already in favor of some summer-like conditions, stably imposed on this area's surroundings.

It really is interesting how the seasons exist here, just bound to particular locations in the extra death world-y sections of the planet. Certainly always a change from the random storms and worse the Grand Line will throw at you otherwise- case in point, the Grand Cruiser just had to plow through a random field of ice for a bit to get here, breaking through the ocean's reticent crust to open up a way.

The sound of ice being crushed was kind of nice, actually. Soothing.

But yeah, a new island, a new evaluation to be made as to whether to commit mass murder and if so, how much. From a distance, it looks… kind of like straight out of an old western movie, a desert town with a harbor complete with tumbleweed blowing by in the surroundings every now and then.

…Actually, looking closer… You're pretty sure that's some kind of weird lightweight animals, actually. Made out of these flexible, fleshy tubes that closely imitate the appearance of tumbleweed, but you can see blood flowing. Weird shit, but then that's just the usual around this dimension, you suppose.

More importantly, your unreasonably sharp eyes can also make out cowboy hats here and there among the people bustling through the… town, you'd say, just from appearance alone, over there, and really it's just impossible to describe any other way than some weird version of the Wild West.

You can probably navigate this easily enough. If it's anything like Samba Island, it may have some cultural aspects of the real wild west it's leaning on heavily, but knowing that much, you'll deal with it well enough, you reckon.

"Howdy, pardner! Welcome ta Texa Texa Island. Hope ya don't mind the taste of FREEDOM in the air!"

You've disembarked for five seconds and already the urge to facepalm is rising in you. Immensely.

"By the way, Ah hope ya don't have pirates aboard, yeah? We don't look too kindly on illegals here, just so ye know."

…All that's missing is the casual, massive racism now.

"Or dem filthy fishmen for that matter!"

You stand corrected.

Silently thanking yourself for remembering to hide your Jolly Roger before you came anywhere close to the island itself, you immediately launch yourself into the appropriate state of mind for what your first instinct tells you to do. "No worries there stranger, no fishy business aboard," you wave off the man greeting you as soon as you step off your ship. "We just came from fightin' off some scoundrels out at sea, so the crew's looking forward to a break in a civilized island."

"Hah, darn tootin'. Any directions you fine folks need 'round here?"

"Well," you smile politely, still rapidly taking in the sounds and conversations and what you can see from where you stand, "where's the snazziest clothes shop in town and where can I find the nearest saloon?"

Gotta fit in to infiltrate and all that. Your featureless black shirt and pants of plain, perfectly comfortable cloth shouldn't draw too much attention, but you definitely can do better- and while perfect may be the enemy of good, never let it be said you let good stand in the way of better.

Not that some Beri spent here and there will be any particular issue; whether you intend to just take any you spend around here back or not during any potential mass murder you may or may not commit later, money really isn't a big issue for you so far. As long as you keep your spending reasonable, at least.

No casually buying up a couple hundred tons of steel to construct anything, like you may or may not have done before your manufactories just started replicating matter. Somehow. Ah, those were some good times.

Long story short, after some flirting with a lovely shop attendant and tailor, you're outfitted with everything you need to seamlessly integrate into the scenery of Texa Texa Town, the one and only town on Texa Texa Island. No, you will resolutely refuse to actively comment on the name.

A cowboy hat, vest, shirt and leather pants make up the bulk of your real purchases, cheap as they might be because you may or may not have proven the usefulness of your cunning linguistics while shopping, along with a pair of ass-less chaps that round out the whole thing. Leaving the buttons undone to properly show off your chest and abs a little, as Sarah insists you absolutely have to, you only turn dozens of heads the moment you step out onto the street after changing clothes.

All according to plan.

Making your way to not the biggest, but rather the most popular saloon in town (because of course it's saloons, this is the wild west and all), you keep an ear out for any news of actual interest, scoping out Texa Texa Town for the kind of things you'd be interested in. Beyond, y'know, the use of its population as human sacrifices, for the various things you need those for.

Man, you just straight up committing mass murder to fuel yourself into greater heights of power and convenience is kind of a mood, isn't it? Then again, you always did start out with the premise of yourself being a bad guy, so it really shouldn't be surprising.

Even back when it was just murder instead of mass murder, you absolutely and immediately went with the premise of yourself being a villain. It's not like you really hid that part. Just exactly how many people you chomped down on at times.

Man, that near-complete planetary genocide against the Flaxans was fun. And very nutritious! In retrospect, you may have overeaten at the point everything just started tasting the same, but you'd totally do it again given half a chance.

Sadly, wiping out entire planets makes it far less fun to play around on said planets, so you'll just have to make do, you suppose. Ah well, there's worse things in life. Unlife, whatever, you've made that joke plenty of times by now.

Anyways, you go ahead and visit the saloon, swinging those little pretend saloon doors wide open on your way inside. Taking a quick look around, you find that you, too, are being looked at by half the people inside.

Not letting that bother you in the slightest, you stroll right inside, walking right up to the bar and taking a seat. "Whatever you keep around that nobody drinks because it's to strong," you tell the bartender, raising hand to let him know you want something. "I need to burn my mouth out a little."

The Devil Fruit you ate has been long gone by this point, but you can still taste how horrible it tastes sometimes, when you don't pay attention. Probably just some psychosomatic thing, but you're hoping overwriting this shit like this will help a little.

Wordlessly, the mustache'd man polishing glasses behind the counter turns around, picks out a bottle filled with deep brown liquor from the array of samples that never really get opened normally (doesn't every bar have something like this?) and fills some of it into a shot glass, using two fingers to slide it along the bar's polished wood so it comes to a halt straight in front of you.

Appreciating the professional demeanor, you go right ahead and throw the stuff you just got down your throat, tasting just enough on the way to do the trick, hopefully. It's certainly got the alcohol content you were looking for, acrid and absolutely disgusting, but with your newfound perspective on what it means to be truly disgusted, it's downright tolerable.

Kicking back another two of those shots, you eventually decide you've had enough, leaving some cash on the counter (it better had be enough, you don't really bother with the exact amounts of anything right now) and getting going once again now that you've got what you came for. After all, while you were pretending to vigorously consume high-proof liquor, you actually occupied yourself with listening in on all the conversations taking place in or around the saloon, concentrating a little to really take as many of them in as possible.

Most weren't exactly interesting, so you basically just filtered through a bunch. That said, you did eventually hit upon some talk that did interest you- and so you proceed to take a seat with some strangers you've yet to meet, playing poker and gossiping among themselves.

"What's that about a Devil Fruit hereabouts, hm? Deal me in and tell me more."

May as well go all in while you're at it.

The story, as you find out after some playing nice, a few games of poker that see you win more than you lose (you don't even bother cheating, this is just you playing properly) and a couple of drinks to loosen any stiff tongues, isn't all that much to work with as it turns out. Not that you expected a full summary of the situation complete with flowcharts and a power point presentation, but still.

Simply put, as far as anyone within earshot knows, an old coot that often wanders out in the desert (because yes, Texa Texa Island does, in fact, have a desert and all) found something while he was out there, something people have been talking about. And not in a good way, necessarily, as you find out.

Devil Fruits are extremely rare out in the four Blues, that much you've covered in excess at this point. Here on the Grand Line, they're still rare, just slightly less so, for a variety of reasons, so more people can be expected to actually know what they are and reason out that seemingly supernatural or impossible feats may be connected to them.

However, Texa Texa Island is, well, kind of a dump, with fairly little traffic between it and other islands, at most a stopover for people coming from Robber Island and spreading stories about it, which might've caused some of the general xenophobia you've seen around. Or at least helped an already fairly isolated community prone to seeing anyone from elsewhere as Literal Evil to develop further into being just that.

What you're getting at here is that, despite being on the Grand Line, Devil Fruits are nigh unheard of here, with rumors and speculation about it abound. Convenient in the sense that you easily hear about it, thanks to this old man named Dwayne showing it around until someone could put a name on it, but also highly annoying in the sense that, uh, half the town knows about it by now.

Granted, most inhabitants of this island think it's some dark magic hoodoo-voodoo or some shit and wouldn't get anywhere near the thing, but plenty of others heard rumors about Devil Fruits granting mysterious powers and would be up for giving it a try… And then there's ones in between that want to destroy it so it can't continue to 'disrupt the peace' or whatever.

Really just the ones that are afraid of it taking things to their natural conclusion. Honestly, this really does remind you of actual rural Texas, where half the country hicks out there really are just that stupid and uninformed.

Note to self, fuck with Texas at some point. Just because.

Anyways, now you have the Sheriff of Texa Texa Town trying to get Dwayne to fork over the fruit he found, the people either watching and waiting for the juiciest bit of gossip that'll go down this whole year and the ones that want the whole thing done and over with one way or another. Happy fun times all around, huh?

Perfect time for a dashing stranger to come in and un-complicate this entire situation dramatically, you suppose. Then again, when isn't it the perfect time for you to make an entrance?

Finding the place this Dwayne guy lives in isn't particular hard, in the end; not only can several of your new 'friends' point you the way easily enough, you find that once you draw near, the ambient sound of people arguing, some of them shouting and some just speaking normally, guides you as well if you needed it to. Looks like something's going down already as it is.

Stepping into the scene in short order, you find that there's a mob of sorts gathered around old Dwayne's place, so you immediately look around for a nice vantage spot amongst the surrounding buildings. Finding one right across the street, you quietly jump and climb up along its walls, your weight reduced to nothing making it easy to scramble along without so much as budging your cowboy hat along the way.

Once up, you inspect what you can see of the whole thing. Ignoring the mass of people gathered here, there's two blood signatures that stick out for not being among them, that being one man inside the house and one standing in front of it. Dwayne and, judging from the glinting metal star stuck on his chest you can spy for a moment as he turns, the local Sheriff, who as it so happens is basically the law enforcement around these parts, from what you heard.

And also trying to get Dwayne to hand over the Devil Fruit, from the looks of it.

"This has gone on long enough, Dwayne," the man in question says, arms crossed as he stands in front of the building. The stubble covering half his face, an obviously missed day or two of shaving, is too short to conceal what an utterly psychopathic look he has going on, though whether that's just his attempt at a resting bitch face or him legitimately being that obvious of a psychopath is another question entirely. His cowboy hat is a whole lot less snazzy than yours too, by the way. "Hand it over and we can all forget about all of this."

"Never!" The old man replies from inside his own home. "It's my property! My lucky break! I ain't giving it up!"

"It's a dangerous object that needs to be handled properly and you don't cut it," the Sheriff argues, as much to Dwayne as to the crowd behind him. Interesting. Looks like he's mostly angling to have them support him over actually talking the man down. "If you won't come out and hand it over, I'll have to come in and take it."

"Try, chief! You try to intrude on my property, steal from me, I'll shoot you dead where you stand!"

Murmuring, it seems the gathered mob is of divided opinions for the moment, much to the Sheriff's grimacing chagrin. On the one hand, plenty of the townsfolk agree that leaving something as 'dangerous' as a Devil Fruit in an old hoot's hands is irresponsible in itself, whether because it's dangerous in itself (for those too uninformed to be qualified to have an actual opinion) or because he might eat it, develop witchcraft-based superpowers and endanger everyone in sight.

On the other hand, it also seems like there's just as many people around that absolutely agree he's entitled to the fruits of his own labor, including this Devil Fruit, and that trying to take it from him would be theft in the form of crass government overreach. Which, hey, you'll agree to any day, purely because fuck the police. And also because this Sheriff guy totally wigs you out.

Luckily for everyone present, you have a great compromise to offer to get them out of this situation! Insofar as you drop in from above, ignoring Mister Sheriff-Man as you simply approach the house. "Hey! What're you-!"

You also ignore his bellowing as he draws his gun, instead considering, for just a moment, how to make your way through the wall standing before you. Punching it in would work, sure, but you fear it would lack just a little pizzazz, that spark of something special you want to convey with your actions. Accelerating yourself unreasonably far and simply walking through this solid wood? Similarly workable, but also running the risk of not really expressing just how little shits you give right now.

Ah well, you do have a fresh new power to play around with, may as well indulge yourself. Sorry Last Embrace, daddy will let you out to play later instead. Raising a hand, you hold out a palm towards Dwayne's house, letting a humming spark of electricity build up for a moment.

Then you summarily let off a bolt of lightning, aimed straight forwards and blasting a hole into the wall. Its impact has the ground tremble beneath your feet, the flash of light produced blinding that carelessly look straight at it momentarily and the shockwave of thunder rolling through the air stealing the breath from anyone too close right then.

It is, in short, some proper lightning. Very much like what you'd see in, y'know, a normal thunderstorm, except personally aimed by you at whatever you want blasted apart. Splintered, smoking wood explodes in all directions for a moment, the blackened hole left behind similarly smoldering in the aftertaste of ozone in the air.

Stepping forwards, you smack the thing once, breaking off a few planks whose decimated pieces fly inside the building so you can comfortably walk right inside. Next to where you came in, Dwayne is huddling below a window, staring with wide eyes at this stranger brazenly intruding on his home.

"Where is it?" You ask, not unpleasantly. "The sooner you fork it over, the less time I'm spending testing how much electricity you can take before your heart stops."

It doesn't take long at all, once you let tongues of lightning snap out from your lips, before you come into possession of wooden box, hidden inside a hidden compartment below the floorboards until now. That was nice and easy, you gotta say.

Coming back outside, you find yourself in the dubious company of a certain Sheriff, who is now pointing a gun at you. "Hand-"

"Good lord man, you couldn't get Dwayne to do a single thing, what makes you think I care in the slightest?" You ask him, one eyebrow raised. "Go fuck yourself."

You pointedly take your time walking away, ready to let any bullets that come pass right through you instead of jumping up onto a rooftop and moving quickly from there. Sadly, none ever come. Ah well, you suppose you'll get another chance to show off how little of a fuck you give about people trying to hit you with literally anything sooner or later.

There was a lot of work that actually went into keeping a ship running, even a mostly autonomous one animated by only the darkest of magics and elbow grease. Sure, it mostly moved by itself, but the more moving parts there were in a mechanism, the more wear and tear was going to add up before you knew it.

The fleshy parts? Not her problem, but Sherrel was literally the one Tinker with a speciality in vehicles of all kinds, including maritime ones. So what if Gabe could just fix anything that ended up giving up the ghost in the middle of a journey, she refused to let it come to that in the first place.

And while she was at it, she could tinker a little, add some upgrades… Two for the price of one. Coming to another world like this wasn't all that bad, after all, as long as she pretty much lived on the ship.

Sherrel… wasn't really great with people anymore, truth be told. Used to be she was just fine, 'course, back when she was a coked up pile of garbage lugging around a huge dashboard and all. Good ol' white trash mentality, it never failed her when she needed it.

Then a certain someone took her off the drugs and onto vampire blood instead, starting her on the long road of getting her fucking shit together whether she wanted to or not. Kind of a rude wake up call. But one she ended up running with, in no small part because being sober all of a sudden?

It kinda outlined just how bad her life decisions had been before. Not that she'd ever admit it, because fuck that, but being a druggie Tinker working on these big projects for months only to have them break down the moment they got used? That kind of sucked from a professional standpoint, and the less said about the company she kept the better.

Skidmark, Adam, had been… Well, he'd been fuckable enough as long as she was high, that was about it. And when you had to borderline OD to ignore the rest of someone enough to occupy yourself with their dick, let's just say BBC only went so far even for her at the time.

Prospects weren't exactly a thing, with the Merchants. Just the good ol' chase of the next high. Newbies might tell themselves it was just gonna be the one, but it never ended up that way. Nah, Sherrel was a born and bred addict from the moment her mother settled down in a trailer park and whored her ass out for thick, long lines of white gold before ever having her and that was that.

Now, Gabe… That was a guy. Being 'voluntold' to join the Crypts back before they became much of a thing was kind of a bit much, but at least the boss was eye candy at all times- and, being forcefully sobered up, Sherrel did already know she'd never go back to Adam at the time, but not only was his replacement some prime eye candy to go with the great sex, he was also a lot less demanding of her in general.

The best kind of boss, she'd tell you, was the kind that just didn't care what you were doing unless you wanted them to. So she'd jumped onto that train back then, getting herself a position as 'one of the girls' and all that.

What they had wasn't some super mushy love affair or anything; Sherrel just liked to fuck and Gabe liked it as well, so fuck they did. She knew he could be all, like, super eloquent and erudite and cultured if he wanted to, but that just wasn't what she wanted, so he wasn't like that with her.

Gabe, she'd come to think, was kind of like a mirror in a way. One that only showed you what you wanted to see. Because that's just how he was. Anytime he was with someone else, he adjusted the way he moved, what he said and how, down to his thought process. Not as in separate identities or anything, it was just the normal thing of how people behaved differently in different situations taken to eleven.

The big guy was who he needed to be to get what he wanted, whether that was sex or cooperation or just manipulating you for something. And he was good at it too. But that wasn't really the point- the point was, Sherrel could work with that and it was a clear upgrade compared to her other options, so she ran with it when she had the chance.

What they had was the kind of understanding you have when two damaged assholes rub up against each other and figure they could live with the other existing. From then on, Sherrel spent her time tinkering, turning her workshop and the cabins of whatever stuff she built into a sort of safe space, where she didn't have to face anyone that was gonna get all judgemental about anything, and so when Gabe needed a driver she could do the job no sweat.

It was nice. It let her control who she had to deal with and how far she had to move outta her comfort zone, while Gabe never pressed her on it or nuthin'. He realized, she was pretty sure, but while he'd been making sure to offer chances for her to go out and put her into the environment she was trying to avoid, that was all he did- offer.

It was no pressure and no judgement. As she already went over, he adjusted based on who he dealt with, so when he dealt with her, he was just chill and casual about this kind of stuff.

Something she appreciated. And really, ever since going all vamp, the idea of more people to deal with and having to relearn how to live in a society that wasn't pumped full of the cheapest, shittiest fenta it could find hadn't been anywhere near as harrowing as it used to be. She also didn't really fancy it, but it was okay, in theory.

So she'd finally taken her man up on his offer to take her out, particularly considering she'd ended up preggers from him along the way. Sherrel always did figure it'd happen sooner or later anyways, but if she was gonna have someone's kid, it may as well be his. So since the scamps he had with Nora and Sarah kept on buggering her about their unborn sibling, yeah, she may as well make use of the time dilation and come back to Bet with the bun outta the oven and all already.

In the meantime, she could just treat the ship like she did any of the trucks, or the invisi-van, tinkering with it here and there and just feeling safe on it. Nobody that wasn't supposed to be there was so it was about as relaxing as it got.

Except when some shitheads tried their luck sneaking aboard of course. Kind of a crimp in that whole plan.

"I'm telling you, these assholes are loaded! Just gotta find where they keep their treasure and we'll be set for years!"

"I dunno man, this rig looks kinda weird. Just saying. Maybe we shouldn't mess with them."

"Bah, we'll be in and out before anyone notices! Just follow my lead."

Yep. More balls than brains on a couple morons, unsurprisingly. And with everyone else on the island right now, it fell to her to take care of them. Ah well.

"Alright guys, now we just need to go in and…"

What awaited the three shits-for-brains was nothing less and nothing more than death. Death in the form of an oversized wrench raised overhead. Never call yourself a real Tinker without one to hand at all times.

While a couple of would-be thieves are introduced to the Grand Cruiser's security measures, that being a vampire that doesn't appreciate surprise guests, the rest of the crew is spread around the streets of Texa Texa Town, doing… whatever it is they do, really. Some are drinking, taking the opportunity afforded to them by a bit of (momentarily) intact civilization to drink away some of their wages in whatever saloon or pub looks the most appealing, while others are just scoping out what areas to loot once everyone starts dying horribly.

Call it quick learning or force of habit, you suppose. On the other hand, a few of the minions are also just fucking around, as best you can tell, getting into random fights, copying the weird ways some wannabe cowboys are walking (you haven't actually seen any horses around, so why're they walking like their balls got squished riding?) and, in one case, purchasing some food and condiments to bring back to the ship.

Of course the girl that used to work in her parents' restaurant is conscious about these kinds of things. Well, you ain't complaining, though you make her mentally note down every shop she visits so you can make it a point to recover the Beri she uses later.

You consider this a business expense, meaning none of your people have to pay for it themselves. This is a pirate ship you're running, not a copy of the US education system. You, for one, have standards, dammit.

Anyways, you take the box you seized from Dwayne back to the ship first thing first, not so much because it's secure and more just to make sure you aren't interrupted unnecessarily. Waving hello to Sherrel who's just gotten done stowing the dead bodies below deck, you bring it to your cabin for now, gently putting it down on your new table. While you were gone, it seems Sarah went and sourced some new furniture, so you have a bigger bed now, too.

Much appreciated, for all that you know precisely what it's meant for.

With this, you're pretty sure you have everything really valuable you could've gotten from this place, leaving you with the question of what to do about Texa Texa Island. And, not to make it sound like this place is some kind of problematic coworker that needs to be addressed, but you absolutely should do something about it.

You don't know, it just feels kind of vaguely offensive to you and you don't particularly like the people, so they're absolutely going to die one way or another. You'll just have to make a decision on how exactly that should happen, now.

The atmosphere's changed a bit, by the time you're back off the ship. Where before there was the bustling of a day out in town, foot traffic going here and there and people talking, now a veil of confusion and anxiety has laid itself over Texa Texa Town, hushed conversations and fleeting, distrusting glances exchanged as townsfolk scurries from one place to the next.

This might have something to do with the sounds of gunshots emerging from elsewhere, echoing through the streets like the steps of people inside a shopping mall on Black Friday. Joined by the cries of fleeing and dying people along with the revving of at least one large engine, out of place in this otherwise relatively primitive level of civilization, there's plenty of reasons for them to be like this, admittedly.

You, of course, are fully aware of what's going on here; having received the go-ahead from you already, the girls are busy feeding on the inhabitants, slaughtering them in the streets and deliberately letting some escape to herd the rest as appropriate. The crew is also helping out a bit, mostly by barricading the major ways out of town and shooting at anyone that tries to make a run for it in the wrong direction- good minion work, you think.

So now Kate's shooting people left and right off in one direction, even eating some of them manually as she goes, blasting through walls and into secret basements dug out to hide illicit goods as appropriate, no amount of hiding exactly enough to stay out of her sights. She even got out her actual weapon, the multi-purpose mechashift all-range super-gun you made her, switching between assault rifle, machine gun and shotgun usage as it suits her to massacre the townsfolk.

Sherrel, on the other hand, is… Well, you'll put this plainly. She repurposed one of the reserve cannons into the basis of a tinkertech motorcycle, using gunpowder to fuel the engine and blow things up at the same time by abusing the recoil as a sort of speed boost whenever she fires behind herself.

All the while she's wreaking havoc and basically just destroying any roads that look too easy to use, only stopping here and there to maul a few civilians with her own mechashift weapon so she can eat them easier. For the most part, the huge hammer mode is what she's going with, as opposed to the equally huge minigun- in contrast to Kate, she can't eat people's souls by shooting them dead, so she'd be risking a lot of wasted food otherwise.

Which, hey, is perfectly valid. It's a serious concern that's an actual issue when you're powerful enough you need to hold back against the masses so you can actually drink their blood properly instead of just massacring them wastefully, as in, without taking their souls while you're at it.

That still leaves… Sarah and Taylor, you suppose. And oh boy, if people thought Taylor was the most brutal among the Crypts' capes, well, they wouldn't be wrong, exactly, but she absolutely does have some competition there.

Sarah is, to put it bluntly, torturing people to death by the dozens using a combination of several of her strengths. Illusions and mind-centric magic allow her to fuck with them massively, showing them things like their own dead families several times over, which is made a lot easier thanks to her being able to create these clones of herself so she can cover more ground.

They have all of her powers and are all controlled by herself, the clones are just a lot more fragile than the real article. Doesn't stop them from casting magic or, indeed, her parahuman power, esper power, semblance, plasmids and all of that good stuff. Meaning they can phase through walls, tell what your greatest fears are at a glance and even serve as ways for her to feed on people faster and easier than 'only' by herself, even.

In contrast to Taylor's swarm, these body doubles aren't protected by her aura, though, interestingly enough. But yes, as it turns out being forcefully made unable to act while your whole family dies horribly in front of your eyes (using her esper power, which just… stops people from doing things or even thinking, for a moment) does make you easy prey for her.

And for any that prove a little more difficult to demoralize into inaction, she still has that blue foxfire thing she's got going on, setting ablaze one building at a time, the plasmid traps she's laid out way ahead of time already knowing where people most likely would try to pass through, the soul of Heartbreaker to make sure you just sit down and feed yourself straight to her if she's so much as mildly inconvenienced by you otherwise…

Oh, and of course her own weapon. The rapier-whip-pistol-dagger combination remains an incredibly, stupidly lethal tool in her hands, particularly when she uses her semblance to slip it straight through walls, but even in general nobody that tries to stand up to her lives long enough to really appreciate just how fucked they are before they die and get plenty of time inside her stomach instead.

She actually makes it a point to murder the Sheriff while she's going around hunting down anyone that might try and actively fight back during your whole thing.

As for Taylor… Well, you hardly need to really explain this, but she's just eating anyone within range of her swarm alive, transformed into an amorphous, malevolent multitude of flies and cockroaches and giant crabs and spiders, with a few mirelurks thrown in there for good measure as well. That said, she also does make it a point to restrain herself to a few, clearly delineated parts of this town, otherwise she'd simply out-eat everyone by depopulating it within minutes.

Like, at the high end. You have full faith she could do it in under a minute if she really tried and applied herself.

As for yourself, you, too, shall have to make sure to eat your fill here, acting as the hammer that drives any survivors straight into the anvil that is the rest of the city. Kind of, anyways, it doesn't look as clean as you're making it sound on a map, but the principle's the same.

Clearing your throat aloud, you let the sound echo widely, forcing the attention of anyone nearby the harbor straight onto you. "Hello, Texa Texa Town! You might've heard of some of the things happening everywhere as this lovely place is coming under attack by these horrible pirates- they call themselves the Dead Sea Pirates, and none that have stood against them have yet to live!"

This simple, almost puerile by your standards, claim has some of these civilians gasping in shock and worry, looking around as panic begins to spread. Naturally, you aren't done yet, however.

"But worry not, dear folks! Have no fear! For I… am here!" Raising your arms, you wait for them to calm down a little. "I, the Captain of the Dead Sea Pirates, shall ensure none of you live to see tomorrow, so there's really no point in worrying, see?"

You give everyone within sight an encouraging smile, Last Embrace settling on your arms, sealing in place with a metallic clank that may as well be sealing their fates.

Then, well, you snip your fingers and people start to simply implode, all nearby weight redirected to squash them like bugs so you can draw on their blood and consume it as swiftly as possible. Wouldn't do to let any of them go to waste, after all.

Now, the screaming begins. And when a handful of Texa Texans try to shoot you before you can kill them, all they earn themselves is you coming in and punching them so hard they explode, their insides decorating the walls and streets nearby.

Man, it's good to be a monster sometimes.

It's fun to chase the food around a bit every now and then, especially in these old-timey long dresses, Western outfits and all the cowboy hats flying around left and right as you make sport of hunting down any inhabitants of this island you can find. To mix things up a bit, you went and started shapeshifting randomly halfway through the purge you're enacting, growing additional arms to launch yourself at your targets, a giant snake or two out of your neck to eat them more efficiently and even just some good old wings, to let you navigate easier while up in the air.

All the while you're also getting some practice shooting lightning from your various additional body parts, just for the hell of it. And to herd your lunch around, of course, cutting off avenues of retreat and blasting apart walls and doors in your way.

The sounds of panic and screaming have started to just kind of make you hungry, by the way, kind of equivalent to salivating when faced with a delicious smell or something. You just don't really salivate like that anymore, what with the amount of saliva inside your mouth being static until and unless you actively try to produce more.

It's a thing, you suppose. And hey, you ain't complaining about it or anything.

On a related note, it never gets old to chase a few 'survivors' straight towards the area Taylor is taking care of, just to watch their reactions when the first ones among them step foot into the 'dead zone' and get eaten alive by suddenly appearing swarms of insects. Down to the bones and all, she does some clean work as always.

As always, you're kind of enjoying this mass consumption of human life whole affair, for all that you're doing it less for your personal enjoyment and more to amass more souls to feed on. It does take a little work but you can, finally, feel yourself growing appreciably full once again, not quite yet launching into cocoon spinning activities but getting close after this massacre settles down a bit, eventually.

About high time, really- you literally ate a whole planet's worth of aliens (minus the few you ended up sparing, whatever) in-between now and the last time you powered up like that. You do hope your digestion isn't somehow racist about this and just makes human souls count for more than non-human ones or something, that would be downright… embarrassing, you suppose you'd call it.

Like, you personally don't really discriminate in that regard, so it'd just be a little weird if fully sapient souls don't just all matter the same once they're down your gullet. Just saying.

Anyways, you more or less devastate the area and completely wipe out Texa Texa Town in short order, with not a single survivor. Any that try to make a run for it out of town are taken care of by Taylor, whereas anyone that goes and gives sailing away while you're all busy with the town itself receives a rude awakening in the form of a certain undead abomination dragging whatever ship they took from Texa Port straight beneath the waves.

Turns out making the Krabkren finally came in handy. Your plan was to use it as a contingency in case the Marines actually manage to surprise you while you're asleep and you need a bit to actually wake up, but this works just as well for now.

It is only by the time the whole town descends into an eerie silence, only broken by the occasional breaking wood as your crew loots the place, that you return to the Grand Cruiser, feeling a little full and very satisfied.

Now then, time to go crack open that box containing that Devil Fruit. Supposedly, anyways- if it turns out these idiots were just mistaking a normal fruit that doesn't grow around here for one of the things, you're gonna… Well, mostly just laugh at your own expense, really. Their ignorance really would've gotten you good, at that point.

The thing you pull out of the wooden box is soft and saggy, almost amorphous even, though not quite. Covered by a thick film of oily residue, this thing smells about as appetizing as you know it is, meaning it's downright repulsive.

Okay, maybe you're being a little dramatic; it smells kind of vaguely oily, but that's really the worst of it. Taking the mushy flesh of the fruit aside, you're spotting some swirly patterns on its itself dark skin, clearly indicating that it is, indeed, a Devil Fruit. Now normally, you might be making an estimated guess as to what it does based on how it looks like, after your own experiences with the one you ate yourself. However, there's another option!

Also in Dwayne's house, found by Sarah after she ate him and all, was a Devil Fruit encyclopedia, the source of his knowledge of what he picked up and all. Probably outdated by a century or two, depending on whatever edition is the newest right now, but it does have an entry on this one- the Oil Oil Fruit, apparently classified as a Paramecia (as opposed to a Logia like your own).

Interesting to see how people classify these kinds of things. Then again, people just love to invent different drawers to sort stuff into, especially if it's something that's hard to classify to begin with- just looking at the PRT's threat ratings and how they're used in common parlance on Bet today. Has to be some funny little snag in the human psyche.

Anyways, this thing gives the user the power to produce and manipulate oil, pretty much, which… Hey, fucking figure you'd find it on Texa Texa Island of all places. Also, this being what it is… Holding the fruit in your hand, you close your eyes, going deep inside yourself.

You're pretty sure if you ate it, something bad would happen- it looks like doubling up on Devil Fruits wouldn't be the wisest idea, after all. Which leaves you with the next question, now that you've somehow divined something you probably have no business knowing this precisely- should you give this Devil Fruit to anyone right now or hold on to it for later?

Well, conducting an on-the-spot study on whether this thing would actually be useful for anyone- with the understanding that you only get one Devil Fruit and that's it- reveals that none of the vampires around right now are really particularly interested. Well, Sherrel was kind of mildly playing with the thought of this power, purely because copious amounts of varying kinds of oil are kind of a professional interest of hers, but it's really just a passing thing for her.

So back into the box it goes for the time being, then straight into your shadow for storage. Maybe you'll find a good recipient for this thing later, maybe you'll just keep it around for when you return to Earth Bet and find someone that'll appreciate it there. In the meantime, you sure as hell aren't about to go and do much of anything else with it- least of all sell the thing.

Sure, any Devil Fruit is damn valuable if you get it out to the right market, but you aren't exactly lacking in funds in this dimension or anything. Or rather, you don't really buy stuff here that requires you to have any serious amounts of cash on hand anyways.

Being able to just create gold if you feel like it makes it pretty trivial to acquire however many Beri you can sell it for, even if you didn't have plenty of money and valuables by now from all the miscellaneous looting you've been doing. Or rather, that the Dead Sea Pirates have been doing, you suppose, not like you personally bother with the manual parts of violent wealth acquisition on these waters.

Speaking of, Texa Texa Town is currently in the process of being looked over like that at the tender mercies of the girls bossing the crew around, along with the customary work gang of animated corpses you put together on the fly just to make the logistics of carrying everything that much easier. They're going through the entire place house by house, making sure to get everything of particular note and snatching up any stragglers that might've been overlooked in the initial attack on this place.

It's not like you did several sweeps throughout town just to be sure, so there could have been survivors, as long as they hid well. In any of the areas Taylor didn't already check through for this exact reason. They'll probably be dead by now, truth be told, you just didn't bother to ask how things are going.

Chances are your help isn't exactly needed, and if it is someone would probably ask for it. Not like many actually strong people lived here before you came, as far as you know; going by the memories you stole from your victims, it was just the usual freaks of nature you have everywhere in this dimension, from the looks of it.

Y'know, freakishly huge, malformed bodies, shoulders the width of the average man's outstretched arms put together, all with normally sized heads on top just to make it look even more ridiculous, that kind of thing. To be honest, it's a little disturbing how normal this seems to be hereabouts, considering none of the locals have ever seemed to say a single word about the existence of people like that.

Then again, maybe their racism is just reserved for fishmen or something. Far be it from you to judge where they put their racism energy.

Anyways, you expect you'll take a hot minute or two to finish looting, but by then you should have everything ready to continue your journey. This was, in the end, pretty much just a slightly extended pit stop- if one that was a very nice opportunity to fill your belly with plenty of delicious souls.

Y'know, an important part of any road trip, having big, chaotic meals you share with everyone. Piracy and friendship go hand in hand and all that. Oh hey, maybe you should make, like, an unnecessarily edgy comic or even cartoon about your misadventures around this dimension, that'd be kinda funny if you can muster the will to assert the necessary effort.

Beaches. Beaches are kind of a common thing in a world where solid ground is limited to disparate islands rather than larger landmasses like continents. That's not to say some people don't still live their entire lives inland enough to never see the sea, but still- the point you're getting at is that beaches are more easily accessible here for pretty much anyone that wants to see one.

That doesn't make it any less enjoyable to find a nice spot by the sea, set up some grills and do what basically amounts to another Luau, which you really don't do enough of the more you think about them. The private beach you got yourself over near L.A. should really see more regular use- maybe set up entertainment for the Crypts on the weekends or something, just as an appropriately extravagant hangout thing?

Eh, you'll think on it for a bit. In the meantime, you're just going to enjoy lying back and using some fine, careful control over gravity to grill a bunch of steaks remotely, having plundered the entire supply of meat Texa Texa Town had in it. If you weren't capable of this stuff well enough by now, you'd even call this training, but as it stands it's really just you doing this for the heck of it.

And to relax in the sunshine, you suppose. "Screw you too, cancer ball," you smile as you give the local sun the middle finger, letting its cancer rays hit your bare chest to no effect.

Among all the things you've done since you rose from the dead, purposefully coming out into the sun to 'tan' yourself like this kind of feels like the most perverse and disgusting, speaking as a vampire. Then again, not caring about that kind of thing is very much your style, so tough luck to whoever cares, eh?

"You know, I think the Captain's got some real nice abs."

"Huh, really? …You're right, they look kinda nice."

"Guys, let's not be weird about this, okay?"

"What? I'm just saying I appreciate his form. There's nothing weird about that."

"Just saying, I don't go around gawking at other men."

"There's gawking and there's making a simple observation. Look, I'm not about to go flirt with the dude or nothin'."

"Yeah, it's completely normal, man. Nothing weird about this. Now, if we were talking about how well-toned his ass is, I'd agree, but-"

"You ever wonder if the Captain's bothered by people objectifying him like this?"

"Eh, c'mon, this is just casual talk about him being stupid levels of fit."

"Yeah, but I mean, in general. Like, we can all agree he's a good-looking guy, all handsome-like right? You ever think he became a pirate because he got tired of being reduced to that?"

"Hah, you wouldn't know with your mug!"

"Dang right I wouldn't!"

Some laughter pearled through empty streets, across the rubble of mutilated homes and shops. It petered out in short order, of course.

"Seriously though, it's kinda botherin' me now."

"Yeah, me too. Hey, as the only non-guy among us, what's your opinion on us possibly ogling the Captain?"

"Fueh?!"

"Like, is it gay or is it just, y'know, normal guy stuff? We can't agree, so we need a different perspective on if it only counts for the butt."

"FUEEEH?!"

The crew sure are having fun as always, huh? You were kind of worried about them when you just kind of kidnapped them along for the ride, but hearing them talk about whether it counts as gay if a guy slaps another guy's ass makes it clear that they're dealing with things just fine.

For the record, you personally believe what matters is the intent of the action, rather than the action itself; you can acknowledge a guy is sexy or whatever just fine without it being gay, and even if you pointedly ignore other men's appearances you can still be very gay about it and just trying not to let it show.

But hey, let people do as they will, you ain't the sexuality police or anything. Or not like you give a fuck who some other people fuck, rather.

Anyways, you invite everyone over to join you in your little private section of the beach by the time it's around time for them to take a break anyways, letting them all share in the glory of sitting on a beach and eating tons of steak. It's a nice little occasion, not to mention the meat is really good, actually- they only had a few ranches around this place, but the ones that that exist did produce some real good stuff, you'll admit.

The animals involved weren't exactly normal cows, mind you. They mostly looked the same, but these ones can shift their considerable weight on surprisingly flexible joints to just get up onto their hind legs, making them technically humanoid, as well as cantankerous murder machines if and when roused to violence. Also some grade-A beef as you already noted, though.

Not intelligent or anything, they absolutely were normal animals. Just weird. Because every living being in this dimension just has to be super weird, apparently.

Also, the females have bigger horns than the males apparently, something of an important point for the locals- there was at least one long-running feud between ranch owners over whose herd had the longest, most aesthetically appealing horns. You… aren't even going to touch that one.

Come to think of it though, your long-term human ranching project over on Earth Rapture did show some promise before you left. You can't help but think back to it whenever the topic of livestock comes up. It really turned out surprisingly well, looking back, despite the numerous minor, yet persistent and potentially problematic snags that you kept running into along the way.

Mostly in the form of governments and private individuals both taking issue with Cryptic Solutions buying up what they were made of, little bastards trying to keep hold of whatever power they managed to fool themselves into believing they have, religious sorts not getting with the program while you were programming select pieces of society to better suit your needs here and there…

Ugh, just thinking about it kind of annoys you. Casually finishing off the last bit of steak you had left, table manners impeccable not in spite but rather precisely because the pirates you surround yourself with are stuffing their faces like wild monkeys (you don't blame them, it just means you grilled it well enough they can't help themselves), and get up, stolen silverware twirling through your fingers before you neatly lay it down for later.

"Don't mind me guys, I'll just go work off some energy," you tell the crew as you leave, for the moment.

Frustration at people in general doesn't usually drive your actions, but you have the feeling you might have to engage with the idiotic bullshit (trademark pending) only humanity can generate sooner or later in this dimension. It's probably for the best if you go ahead and clear the air inside your head a little, as it were.

And what better way to do so than being productive about it and stretching some of your newer powers in the process?

For some reason, the one the Goro Goro No Mi lets you do that you're the most intimately familiar with already is the one thing you've been having the most trouble with getting used to, so far.

Pushing out stupid amounts of electricity? Currents that would fry most people in an instant? Easy. Letting objects pass through yourself by momentarily turning your flesh and blood (and bone, for that matter) into lightning? No problem, either.

Going and actually turning parts of yourself or even your whole body into electricity and holding that state for any length of time? That's taking a little longer for some reason, despite you being more than used to transforming your body like this. Not even 'only' into other physical forms, you can literally turn yourself into a shadow, or mist if you want to get gaseous about it even.

So in theory, transforming into an electrical current should be easy with this past experience to back you up, but for some reason you always end up accidentally jumping up into the atmosphere before you know it, loading yourself into any nearby clouds and only then managing to get control back so you can hop back down.

All the while you're basically a bolt of lightning, of course. This actually would be kind of a cool maneuver to use in combat, but still- you're trying to keep control over what you're doing right now, not repeatedly carbonize the soil in the area you're training in.

Well, whatever. You'll get the hang of this soon enough. Your sheer persistence usually pays off with these kinds of things, if not your capacity to just get stuck in something you're working on and refuse to leave it be until you got it right.

Mostly because you'll be leaving this particular issue for later, seeing as the Grand Cruiser has been packed full and all the work that needs to be done for you to leave is just that- done. You could stay around and take a couple extra hours for this, give the crew some extra break time, of course.

You just don't wanna. Your journey's gonna be taking a while anyways, so the less time you outright waste along the way the better.

It is now a day day (or around a day has passed since the last one, whatever, we aren't keeping super close track in this dimension anyways)

406 days since rising from the grave

26 days left in this dimension

Note to self, remember to check the sky for anomalies next time you try to train this stuff. The damn clouds had fine iron sand with strong magnetic properties inside of them, which probably screwed with you while you were working on this Devil Fruit business.

You know, you think you kind of just gave up trying to avoid the whole… mad cult thing going on inside of your stomach. Maybe it's the way it kind of does tickle your fancy to have a bunch of souls try and worship you as their God, maybe it's just that you'd have felt like more of a hypocrite than usual if you went and stopped them after essentially giving them free reign of their own time and all inside this place, only for Wales to start up a following and do his thing, yourself deciding it probably wasn't worth interfering, only for his little project to not peter out by itself and once again putting you back to square one.

But yes, whether it's the result of indifference, mild interest or sheer procrastination on your part, it seems the congregation made up of various past victims of yours is here to stay. They're not the most numerous of the little factions the souls inside your inner world have built up by far, that honor pretty securely belongs to one of the two Flaxan camps that have been slowly, but steadily positioned themselves in mutual opposition, but neither are they entirely negligible.

Turns out one Father Wales does have a way with words after all, especially ever since he managed to recover from the effects of all the ADAM-related brain cancer he had going on when you tricked him into feeding himself and his little followers to you to some extent. Hence there's kind of a wild mix of people and personalities more or less under his sway now, doing all the menacing Latin chanting and sitting around to deliberate over gospel that you assume religious people do on the regular.

They've also taken to trying out some vaguely thought-out rituals apparently meant to attract your attention or please you in some way, with the help of the masked slutty nuns that inhabit the underground temple complex somewhere inside of here. Despite literally being in all of their heads, you're still not… quite sure what exactly they're trying to accomplish there, to be honest.

Ah well, religion at its finest. Wales is mostly letting them do their thing so he can take notes for later should a certain, certifiably insane plan of his pan out. Personally, you don't think it will, but if it does, well, you may need to rethink your own approach to religion or something.

Not that you would, mind you, it would probably just be very appropriate. You just wouldn't give a fuck, in all likelihood.

Anyways, with you no longer going out of your way to avoid the possibly mad cultists inside of here, you're just going to accept that some Latin chanting is gonna happen and move on. That said, there's a bright side here, too- at least you don't have to round up test subjects for your clinical alchemy-related trials anymore, they just come to you and ingest whatever you want them to by themselves now.

"They do know there's usually a mad race away from this area whenever I do this, right?"

"I imagine it has something to do with their faith, my lord," Wales notes, scribbling inside a notebook he found or got someone to make for him at some point as he sits off to the side, passively watching what's going on. "Or the promises of preferential dessert rights if they volunteer. With enough believers chipping in, it is quite possible to get some extras off of any that do not desire theirs."

Organized religion, man. It's as much as curse as it is a blessing when you use it to your advantage. Probably meaning it's a curse overall, considering what kind of advantages people take using it. Then again, you can hardly talk at this point, now can you?

You'll still do it anyways of course, you're a hypocrite and perfectly fine with that, but still, the point stands.

Once the Grand Cruiser is all ready to go, all the choicest bits of loot and plenty of supplies stowed away (you sure didn't have time to work through all the steaks they had lying around in one sitting, no matter how hungry the crew was), you don't waste any more time around the island, instead going right ahead and setting sail once more.

Which for you, personally, basically means you go straight back into hibernation, just to stretch your time in this dimension out as much as possible. You're probably reaching downright compulsive levels of behavior in this regard at this point, but y'know what, you're fine with that.

The more time you spend just holed up like this, the more extra time you'll have later… Particularly when you go full pupa mode and cocoon yourself again. You know, thinking about it, what kind of being you are is kind of really out there, even ignoring all of the blatantly supernatural stuff; sure, you're mostly mammal-like, as per being mostly human the majority of the time, but then you pull shit like literally spinning cocoons to dissolve and remake yourself inside of.

Poor Taylor's whole niche is kind of being invaded there, y'know? And that's not even accounting for you being able to 'survive' without a brain if you so choose, simply regrowing your neural matter whenever it's convenient for yourself.

When your vital organs cease to be vital, something's fundamentally off there. You always just kind of assumed whatever's going on with your own soul is what's letting you keep going, its own functioning independent of your body's which also would explain a lot about all of the other bullshit you can do- you don't exactly have a brain while you're transformed into a shadow, just to name one example.

So all of the controls had to be somewhere else all along, naturally. And now, with a vague, but present awareness of what's become of your 'soul', or so you assume, the abstract construct of your 'self' that is what enables most of your supernatural abilities, you're pretty sure where that is.

You're still kinda stumped on how to exert control over those parts of yourself you can't feel, have no direct way to move and that may be entirely divested from physical reality, but that's alright. Sooner or later you'll figure something out to let you verify this stuff.

Or maybe you won't, because it's literally impossible even for someone that routinely does stuff that should be impossible. Either way you don't really have much you can do about it right now, so it's just a bit of a random tangent for you to go on.

Which, really, is the best use of your time while the Grand Cruiser is sailing, leaving behind the ruins of Texa Texa Town and following the Log Pose's directions, Sarah still the one keeping an eye on the thing to make sure you don't accidentally go off course and waste a week fighting random Sea Kings for no particular gain whatsoever.

Beyond her being able to take that much more time cuddling your corpse, that is. You've just kinda capitulated to the fact she'll keep doing that.

Anyways, the journey goes smoothly for a little bit, only the usual Grand Line weather being an issue like always; luckily the Grand Cruiser is more than robust enough to withstand some spherical hail for a bit.

Yes, it's hail that comes down in the form of, as best you can tell, near-perfect spheres. Whose size ranges from a balled fist to half a torso, more than enough for someone to get their skull bashed in by the stuff. Again, you're just kinda shrugging and going along with this crap by now.

Of course that changes when, in a surprise turn of events, you actually manage to bump into another ship along the way, despite how difficult it can be to navigate these waters. Looking to be around the size and mast configuration of a cruiser itself, this wooden vessel comes right around the corner as you sail past some rocks, likely meant to be lurking in hiding to ambush anyone coming through.

It also bears what is obviously a Jolly Roger of some kind, a skull whose crossbones were replaced by a crossed pair of rapiers (Or epees? You honestly aren't sure how they'd be classified), a pair of stylized purple wings jutting out below and around it.

To be honest, it's one of the more normal designs for these things you can imagine seeing here, so good on these guys, you suppose. On the side of the ship, though, one can also find the words 'Baroque Works' in cursive script- not the ship's name, as one might think at first glance, but rather the name of the organization it belongs to.

Baroque Works, according to the memories of some of the souls picked up on Robber Island, just so happens to be a large-scale group of bounty hunters, chasing down pirates with bounties on their heads for a living. Which, naturally, makes them targets for you, in turn.

Unperturbed by the appearance of the other ship, the Grand Cruiser moves right onward, not a single soul to be seen on deck. Mostly because you had everyone take a break and retreat below deck for a moment due to concerns about the atmosphere- really you're just looking to drive up the drama a little.

Your ship silently slides through the ocean, giving no indication of its crew. As you come closer, yourself hidden, for the moment, the apparent bounty hunters on their own ship are obviously steering towards you, looking to get a closer look.

"There ain't nobody aboard. Think they starved or jumped ship or somethin'?"

"Wouldn't be the first time. Lemme see… We're in luck, this looks like a new bounty, too."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, see, this Jolly Roger's a match."

"Don't even got pictures, but 150,000,000 Beri? How'd these Deadseas manage that?" One of the lead bounty hunters whistles. "Well, let's see if we can't find-"

"Can't find what?" You ask, sitting on the railing of their ship right next to them. The enemy crew- all ten or so of them- recoil, screaming in fear.

"It's a ghost! It's a ghost!" "It was a ghost ship after all!" "Leave it to me!"

Shoving himself to the front, one of these bounty hunters, sporting a large, bushy beard, holds out a shiny, well-polished machete at you like you were a particularly threatening thicket of lianas and other assorted jungle flora.

"I! Am Mister Hairs! And my beard makes me invincible!"

Raising an eyebrow, you quirk your head at him. "Oh? How's that work?"

"Well, I haven't shaved it ever since my first fight, which I won. And I've won every fight I've been in since, so it follows that my beard lets me win no matter what. It's simple science," the guy explains to you, gesturing with his machete.

…You're trying really hard to take people in this dimension in stride. Really hard. It's just not always easy.

Actually, you know what, this entire situation reminds you of one of the many, many random things you've seen on the internet, randomly browsing when you had a few minutes to fill and figured you may as well make use of all this perfect memory crap you've got going on.

One never knows when seemingly trivial factoids may come in handy and all that, after all. Such it is that here, in this very moment, you have a great quote to express what you feel about this entire conversation you find yourself having.

"'You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous'", you tell this 'Mister Hairs', pointing right at him. "From Richard Holbrooke. You wouldn't have heard of him."

"Huh?" Comes the incredibly well-reasoned, elucidating counter-argument.

Right. You're dealing with idiots. Small words and short sentences. "Your science is bad unless you test it. Did it ever occur to you to try shaving and see if your win streak continued?"

"What?!" Protectively raising a hand over his beard, Mister Hairs draws back, machete now raised in a defensive position to stop you from going after his facial hair. "How could I?! To shave a beard is to shave all your beards forevermore! It would be no different from committing to a wholly beardless life! The life of a loser!"

…This is looking more and more like you're dealing with straight out mentally disabled people here. No offense against those, of course, but seriously, who let an obvious moron like this go and become a bounty hunter of any description whatsoever?!

Ugh. Whatever. "You know what, I'll just disprove your beard thing the easy way," you decide, one hand on your face and the other busy waving him off.

"Oh yeah? You may think you're a big bad pirate, with a bounty on your head and all, but we've-"

"Actually, his bounty's at hundred-fifty million," one of the other bounty hunters informs him.

"A mere- wait, what?" He asks, turning around. "Are you sure you didn't misread that?"

In response, the guy in question just holds out what looks like a bounty posting, the space for a face or artistic rendering of the bounty in question filled out with your Jolly Roger instead. "Here. The captain of the Dead sea Pirates, 150,000,000 Beri," he repeats, pointing at it.

"Mhm, wonder where they got an accurate picture of our flag," you note, looking it over with a hand on your chin. "Probably from someone in Samba Kingdom that saw it. I knew sparing that island would be worth it at some point."

Turning around to face you once again like a particularly rusty mechanism, Mister Hairs holds his weapon out, a little to the side. "How about we call a truce for the moment?"

"Mhm, yeah, nah," you wave him off, a sly grin stretching your mouth to one side. "Better idea, how about I just make your death real quick and painless?"

"Can we please talk about that?"

"No."

With that, you simply… Well, do it. Moving too quickly for him to react, you move in close, grabbing him by his shoulder and his head; using strength too great for him to do anything about, you literally pull his skull off his neck, a chunk of his spine still attached to its base and, lastly, crush the bone protecting his brain, killing him instantly.

The whole thing goes by so quickly you doubt he feels much of anything, for simple lack of time for his brain to process this series of events before it's summarily pulped by the fingers of one of your hands. Meanwhile, you go right ahead and bite into the torn wound left where his head once was, clamping your jaws around his carotid artery before the spurting blood can escape.

Then you basically drink him like a sports drink, lifting the body to let the blood flow down easier. You don't need to do so- your bite drains blood all by itself as long as you let it- but you want to, and that's all the reason you need to go for it.

"Phew," you make once you're done drinking this particularly hairy juice pack, soul absorbed as is only proper during a meal. "That hit the spot."

Naturally, while you were busy talking and then drinking, the girls took the opportunity provided by your distraction to climb aboard as well, meaning that by the time you discard the headless body to one side and the crushed head to another, the entire scene has turned downright nightmarish, with blood and severed limbs lying here and there, the screams of the dying already silenced and slowly drifting off in the sea breeze.

As for yourself, you're about to review what 'Mister Hairs' knew, the usual quick overbiew of new information you've taken through the soul of your latest victim and all, but before you do you take a moment to go pick up the bounty poster, now covered in a little blood across one corner.

"Hmm… hundred-fifty million, huh?" You ponder, looking at it. "Is that a lot or too little? Probably too little, thinking about it…"

Note to self, brainstorm some ways to drastically increase your bounty later. If you're gonna be doing this whole pirate thing, you may as well do it right. So you may as well go all in on it, right?

So. As it just so happens, Baroque Works is more than just any old groups of thousands of bounty hunters combing the oceans for pirates. Not only do they do that, they mainly seem to do fundraising through other mercenary work as well, among other things, and generally gather money to support the operations of their mysterious leadership.

Why do they do that, basically being corporate drones and having their money tithed from their pockets like normal people paying taxes in less insane dimensions? Well, for the safety of numbers that being part of Baroque Works brings with it, for one, because the group's internal information network allows them to be just that much efficient at the job… But also, for many of them, certain promises made were a big draw and source of loyalty.

Creating a 'world of their own', where they get to be the new lords and all that. Utter bullshit of course, it doesn't take a genius to see how these mooks are meant to be sacrificial pawns, not to even mention only a handful of them actually know anything of note about it.

One Mister Hairs is the most useful in that regard among the crop you just finished harvesting, having been tasked with a 'special mission' as part of 'Operation Utopia', as they called it. Simply put, the ship he was on was on the way to a certain place called Arabasta, a particular kingdom not unlike Samba Kingdom if you were to compare them, part of the world government and all.

Just smack dab in the middle of the Grand Line, making logistics… interesting, presumably. That said, there are plenty of ways to find your way to a particular island if you know how- including the one Mister Hairs was supposed to use, before this ship ended up making an 'unplanned emergency maintenance stop' when they saw the Grand Cruiser and decided to get cute.

An Eternal Pose, one of those somewhat rare variations of a Log Pose that points in the direction of one island only, allowing its possessor to find it no matter from where in the Grand Line they start. or from elsewhere, for that matter. An easy way to relocate personnel, just give 'em the right one and have them follow it.

And now, with him dead and you in control of this bounty hunter ship, you have it right in your hands, easily acquiring the potential to just… go there. Do some sightseeing in Arabasta, find out more about whatever secret agenda Baroque Works has in the, heh, works, maybe hunt for some particularly appetizing souls- you're nearly ready to cocoon yourself, too, so maybe this would be a great opportunity to work your way through their ranks until you find something good.

That reminds you, you'll have to figure out a nice place to spin your cocoon in when the time comes. If you do it on the Grand Cruiser, which you expect you'll do, maybe doing it in your cabin, where you keep a bunch of stuff that you don't necessarily want to scatter and bind up in silk made of blood and people and suffering souls isn't the best of choices as such, just as an example.

…Technically, you could just pick a spot underwater, right next to the Crabkren, couldn't you? It would even guard you down there while the ship was sailing. On the other hand, just clearing out a spot in the cargo hold should be doable as well, you'd just have to cram some stuff elsewhere for a while.

Decisions, decisions…