When the change first started to happen, one Uyehara Yoshiake was in the middle of reviewing the more problematic parts of one Father Simon Wales' vision of a religion meant to bring forth a new age of unity, transcending many of the foibles that evidently plagued humanity.
Which was all nice and well, but theologically defining it as acceptable to consider 'nonbelievers' less than human and failing to, among other things, define a minimum age for marriage, caution against the dangers of societal collapse caused by a complete lack of certain inhibitions or, say, not endorse the worst of the excesses the supposed deity involved in this mess tended to indulge in general, all spoke of the kind of crazed cult stuff you saw in a bad movie or TV series instead.
Hence why he was trying to convince the man behind this (honestly just as crazed) plan to make several amendments to his personal, self-written bible, which was more a collection of several books pertaining to the fundamental conceits involved in any religious works, invented myths loosely based on what could be gleaned of His past (and present, for that matter) and a lot of doctrine interspersed with what Uyehara could only call insane rambling and calls to praise one monster or another.
It was a slow process, but he liked to think he was slowly getting some sanity into this entire madness, the backup plan he was enacting just in case there was any infinitesimal, just barely existing, one-in-a-billion chance any of what Wales believed to be the truth having a core of truth to it after all.
"That's why I'm saying, you need to…" Going over the pages one by one, he was pointing out passages with… 'positive potential', as Indigo had suggested he call it when something or someone was a fuckup, Uyehara was currently right in the middle of it only to be interrupted by a glow coming from the paper that had been produced in the Workshop. "Ugh, what now?"
"Oh? Oh?!" Growing twice as animated as he'd been before, Wales leaned forwards, his beard quivering slightly as steady, humming vibrations began to shoot through the entire room. "Can you feel it, too?"
"I can feel something all right," Uyehara grimaced, the unpleasant sensation of something large shifting nearby washing over him. Normally these things were a rarity, happening when some new facility or location was created (or dredged up, revealed or whatever was the most accurate term to describe it), so having it happen right now was… probably not boding well, during the big bad's hibernation.
"Look at this." As Wales pointed out, the Cryptic Book, as it had been titled for the moment, continued to glow, a silvery mist rising up from it just like when things or people were summoning into the real world. But how? The monster was as immobile as it got, so-
"OH LORD!" The sudden shout had Uyehara nearly topple over backwards. "PRAISE BE TO YOU, THAT YOU BRING A NEW AGE!"
"No," Uyehara asked as much as he asserted, refusing to believe what he immediately figured had happened. "You can't be serious. It can't have happened."
"REJOICE, FOR IT HAS HAPPENED!" Disregarding the existential breakdown going down across the table, Wales was busy exulting his God, it seemed. "GOD HAS AWOKEN!"
Uyehara Yoshiake wasn't sure whether it was the screaming or the realization that some the worst predictions he'd made had come true, but he was feeling a serious headache coming on. Given such things as headaches normally couldn't happen in this place, he figured that was a notable occurrence in itself.
Not so much, though, as the book Wales had been laboring over like the madman he was being copied repeatedly, brought to parts unknown in a process that shouldn't be possible- without Livsey being awake, nobody should be able to access the thing, never mind summoning it over and over- or replicating it, rather, as the original remained as well.
If only he could be arsed to investigate this bullshit closer instead of going back to the lab and sulking, while doing so accidentally sleeping with both Indigo and Nolac. At the same time. For several days straight.
Look, he was stressed, okay? Besides, it was presumably too late to stop the madness from spreading anyways, he may as well, right? Right?!
When the frost came, it came for everyone. Everywhere. The cold covered the world like a sharp, heavy blanket, pressing down on all of humanity, freezing it all in place.
When supplies stopped flowing, the streets covered in too much snow to be used, fear began to set in. The grand, complex machinery of civilization ground to a halt, stopped in its tracks as surely as the trains that would not run anymore because it was just too cold, the weather too unforgiving.
When starvation began to set in amidst the collapse, the choice was made for any that still could. Not for determination to try for it, but rather for a lack of alternatives. To stay was to die, and so they left.
North, ever onwards, they left, carrying what scant things they could- the last rations to be salvaged they fit into whatever pockets they had on the thickest, most resistant clothes they could find. Into the blanket of snow they went, trudging through the unforgiving cold on any vehicles that still ran, all the horses long since frozen to death and then eaten when it was still warm enough to carve into their flesh.
Leaving behind any that would be too weak to make it. The young and the old. The sick and the unwilling. Consigned to the frozen grave of the cities left behind in the march to another place.
The times of plenty were over. They went on for weeks. Maybe months. Through the pressing plumes of snow, across the frozen sea. Slowly. Step by step. One by one. Loss by loss.
It was hope that pushed them forward. Against the cold. Against the world. Against each and every time they paid the price of their journey.
And finally, they arrived. They arrived where something was supposed to be. The Generator that would warm them, that would be the center of the Last City.
It wasn't there. Despair set in, for a time. But before they could die or kill each other, one of them found something, buried in the snow right where the goal of their journey was supposed to be.
The Generator had never been finished, only its foundations set into the ground before the project had been abandoned after all. But in its stead, the survivors found an oddly immaculate book.
It was this book that would be the key to their survival. To the rebuilding of the world, in spite of the effects of Global Cooling. The fire it lit was inside each of them, and so they constructed a humble, simple shelter, using what construction materials remained on the site.
Instead of a generator, they raised up the beginnings of the Spire.
Sealing themselves into their new homes, they found protection against the cold, the material made to shut against itself perfectly, cold steel growing warm and becoming the shell that would protect them.
They warmed themselves with the power of faith, literally praying for warmth over the rooms those of them blessed with otherworldly knowledge worked away inside of, creating new forms of vegetation somewhere between a fungus and a plant, feeding on blood and producing all that granted life; warmth, light, food, everything.
Knowing they would live or die on the approval of the deity they had found, they began to worship it, one way or another, for none were willing to give up the precious lives they had won by coming this far. And if any outsiders came and found issue with it… They would learn better.
Learn better and join them. Or else end on the altar raised over the spot the Book had been in, a bare, blank thing of granite that embodied all they had been become at the end of their journey.
The Crypticist Faith was born beneath a protective shell of twisted steel, fueled by ever more twisted things grown inside it, in vats and pools and creeping lines spreading to every home, feeding every citizen.
The Faith Must Survive.
It's a weird experience, floating between reality and non-reality like this. Part of you is inside the cocoon on the Grand Cruiser right now, the ship having already set sail once again once everyone was done on Sandy Island, your body liquefied into a thick sludge made of suffering and loss and some other ingredients on the side, while the rest…
There's no particular place you can make out you'd be in, just because 'space' as a concept does not apply to you. Neither do you have any clearly defined form, being more an idea, a line of thinking made just a little more manifest than most, an existence based not on biological constructions of flesh and blood and proteins and all that but rather more- conceptual, you suppose you'd call it.
You do not exist because you have a body that allows you to have a brain with which to think, you exist because you decided you do and that's that. Outside of physical reality altogether, what you are doesn't quite match up with the laws of physics, which is where most of your supernatural powers and all that come from- the friction between what is and what you are, you suppose.
It's all quite interesting, and under other circumstances you might be tempted to sit down and do a few tests first off all. Sadly, you lack any body to sit down with, and when you try to make one you just end up with an imaginary collection of clawed, metal-armored tentacles flailing through non-space until you give up grumbling.
You're basically having to relearn how to move your own 'body', except it's a lot harder because you've never done it before with this brand of existence, and you even have to make sure you don't accidentally lose track of the dimension you were sticking to like a giant, eldritch tick so far, that being where you're keeping your physical body right now, no matter how liquefied it is right now.
You still have the 'chain' wrapped around a part of yourself, more a lifeline now than anything else, but that only helps so much. It connects you, but you're stretching and flexible enough you may just accidentally slip free, which… would probably be quite bad.
It's simply not something you want to risk for now, having little to no idea what the possible consequences might be. Best not to gamble with that one quite yet.
Time, much like space, seems pretty irrelevant 'here'; not only are you nowhere, you're nowhen as well. Another interesting aspect of being in what you are increasingly suspecting to be your 'true' body, or at least the source of your own power, and likely the reason you can bounce back and forth between dimensions without 'losing' any time.
Time simply is inconsistent here, and this lack of consistency is how you can just show up as and when you want to, as long as it's not entirely nonsensical. You think. Note to self, try existing in two places at the same time at some point, see what happens.
It is now that you realize that you are not alone, however. Standing atop one of your potentially-existing tentacles, Robert and Rosalind Lutece are carrying a bucket of paint each, holding them both up, uncaring of how impossible it should be for them to be having their concrete, human forms here and now.
"Red?"
"Or Grey?"
"Red suits what he does."
"Grey suits what he could do."
"One would think we learned to compromise by now."
"Red and Grey clash horribly."
Shifting around awkwardly, you direct your attention towards them. If you had some sort of body, no matter how amorphous, you would be pointing an eye, so to say.
"Oh."
"Awake, are we?"
"Congratulations to being born."
"Or to leaving an old life behind entirely."
"It really was about time either way."
If you could, you would be asking whether or not they have secretly been painting you without your knowledge. Sadly, sound, much like all the other physics you're aware of, doesn't work in this context, so even if you could produce any right now it wouldn't do anything.
How exactly these two are managing to speak is another one of those mysteries you'll have to look into later, you suppose.
"In hindsight, the lack of a womb is unsurprising. These things are quite irrelevant at this level."
"Arguably, the worlds he visited might well have acted as surrogates. Test tubes, perhaps."
"One does have to wonder how much of all of this has been the fetal flailing of an unborn child."
"Certainly no comfort to the victims made along the way," Robert notes mildly.
"Much like friends, they are what counts at the end of the journey," Rosalind shrugs.
If you had an eye directed at them, and furthermore could control it properly, you'd be rolling the thing vigorously right now. If they're just here to comment on your eating habits, they can just take their paint and go use it elsewhere.
The Grand Cruiser, flagship (and only ship) of the Dead Sea Pirates, was drifting through the waters of the Grand Line, aimless as its captain was indisposed inside the gently pulsing mass of red, flesh-like matter pushing out of the cargo hold.
Normally this would be as good as suicide, as not knowing where one was going amidst these treacherous waters was just asking to run out of water, food and hope in that order, if the weather conditions and the fauna didn't end the ship and its crew along the way regardless.
The Grand Line was not a place for the weak to do as they pleased, nor to travel much, for that matter. It was lucky, then, Nico Robin concluded, that the Dead Sea Pirates were the opposite of weak.
The ship itself was somehow alive (or the opposite, if she understood it right), moving under its own power day and night regardless of the crew's efforts, plowing through the roughest of waves and weathering the worst hailstorms without complaint. If it got too bad, it even simply dived into the ocean, letting the currents push it across while a transparent bubble of air kept everyone breathing.
It was fascinating, to watch the surrounding ocean pass by the ship from this perspective. Certainly not something most got to see as they sank into the depths. That usually involved a lot more chaos and screaming than the almost bored mention the event received the two times Nico witnessed it here.
Not that the ship itself was the only notable part. The crew was… Pretty happy-go-lucky, overall, but for all that they were very jovial and sometimes careless, the Dead Sea Pirates were strong themselves as well.
She'd seen the crew members shrug off blades and knives more than once during the fighting in Alubarna. The gunshots bouncing off them were another matter entirely, too.
According to them, the captain had magic and used it to make them immune to bullets. Given everything she'd seen so far… Nico was inclined to believe them, to an extent.
There were stranger things out there than a wizard wielding mysterious forces… For all that she suspected there was more to it than that. Gabriel Livsey had an interesting story of his own, she was sure.
The talking book she'd been shown had alluded to as much when asked, though it didn't explain any further. She'd still been given the choice to 'use' it to 'learn anything recorded inside', though Nico hadn't done so as of yet.
Most of the crew likely had and they looked fine, but she wanted to be sure before she risked it. Very disgruntling, considering a part of her was driven to read any worthwhile book or document she could find, too.
Then there also was the monster she'd felt exploring the outside of the ship's hull, her questing arms feeling its carapace just like the eyes she then also grew confirmed its presence. Most likely an ace up the Pirates' sleeve of some sort.
Though they hardly needed one, considering the lieutenants. All female, all four in a relationship with the captain, from what Nico had heard, though she wouldn't judge until and unless this was confirmed once he came out of the large, red cocoon in the middle of the ship.
She'd seen what happened to the handful of Baroque Works operatives trying to push things into open conflict after the princess and the pirates had arrived. Their instantaneous deaths had been as creatively varied as they had been thorough. It was hard to judge as of yet, but they definitely had what it took to fight the Marines, should they have to.
Good enough for Nico. She'd done what the World Government didn't want anyone to, after all- the location of Pluton had been hinted at in Arabasta's Poneglyph, and now she knew of it. She also had been seen on the island, so the Marines would likely be chasing after her soon- Smoker, if nothing else, would likely inform his superiors- but with the random course taken by the ship right now, she was about as safe as she could be.
Nico Robin would stay with the Dead Sea Pirates as she looked for opportunities to find out more about the history hidden and protected with absolute, lethal force, until they were destroyed or she left them when circumstances conspired towards that end.
Now, why exactly was the one pirate known only as 'Sarah' literally lying atop the fleshy mass the captain had become at all times of day…?
When you awaken, you do so with a jerking startle, the return to having an actual, physically defined body (flexible as that definition may be) such a difference to just being a construct of thought and concepts and yourself that, if you had the ability to, you might well be completely nauseous as your brain begins to work, your senses transmitting information galore and your various bodily functions return to being under your control.
Maybe being fully self-aware in your… greater self, you suppose you could call it, isn't necessarily the best way to spend your time if you're looking to regain corporeality shortly afterwards. Ah well, it hardly matters now- especially considering you're still aware, to some extent.
It's entirely unlike the full, complete awareness you had earlier, but some part of you is still there in the void, like ink infinitely spreading out in water yet never reaching farther than a certain point. And also not at all like that, because badly-fitting metaphors are the only way you can really describe something that has no similarity to anything happening inside the framework of a physical universe of any sort.
You're getting… flashes of things when you concentrate on this link to your greater self, the thing that you heavily suspect to be your soul or something, considering the similarity to how it feels to observe other souls to what you're doing now (are you literally pulling your consciousness into it whenever you interact with your Inner World?), as though you're keeping track of things that haven't happened yet or that could have happened in another place but didn't, but most of these impressions you're getting are just too vague to make out much.
Ah well. This'll take some getting used to, but you suppose you'll just have to do that on your own time. For now, you simply wiggle your way upwards, tearing through the already drying mass of your cocoon as you go.
Pulling one arm free by ripping through to the surface, you pull yourself upwards and out, breaking out right below the psychic presence you were feeling since earlier. Your head emerges from your cocoon right between Sarah's legs, your sister having been sitting on you for some reason.
"Hey sleepyhead, you with us again?" She asks, smiling down at you sweetly.
"Arguably," you reply, and if your shoulders were free already you'd shrug. Speaking of, actually.
Pulling the rest of yourself up to sit alongside Sarah, you stretch a little, making sure your body reformed properly this time as well. You have yet to have any issues, but that's no excuse to get surprised about any popping up at random just because you didn't check ahead of time.
Looking out at the sea, you realize the night's just about to be over, a far-off glow in the clouds announcing another pass by the glowing cancer ball in the sky. The Grand Cruiser is slowly drifting along, a quick access to what passes for its mind letting you know it's just keeping moving in no direction in particular right now.
It's actually kind of a nice moment, all in all.
"Captain! Are you secretly a Mothman? I'll understand if you are!" "Shut up, he's obviously a butterfly!" "Have we considered the possibility of a spider?"
Everyone looks askance at that last one.
"Nah, I don't think so." "I dunno, did the stuff look kind of like silk to anyone else?" "So? Spiders don't have a monopoly on the stuff. Look at him, does the captain look like a spider?"
Sighing, you realize Taylor went and randomly dropped a bunch of insect factoids on the crew while you were out, looking over people's memories over the past few days, and this caused them to kind of… organize into camps over what bugs are cooler than others.
So now you've got this to deal with until they get bored of the whole thing in a couple days. Lovely.
With yourself back in the driver's seat of your own body, you can once again tale control of the ship after it spent the last eight days, according to Sarah, just kind of drifting into the direction of anything vaguely worthwhile even as your sister kept it going in the general direction the Log Pose's needle was pointing.
Everyone (by which you mean all vampires present during your temporary absence) pretty much decided to lay low for a little while you weren't available, so dithering around collecting some food from the ocean was what they chose to go with in the meantime. On the one hand, that means you're nowhere near as close to the next island as you could be, though on the other you have plenty of fresh, refrigerated crab meat in stock to feed the more human crew for a good while.
Taylor really has been busy, you suppose. In other news, Sherrel got a little snippy about you accidentally breaking the Grand Cruiser a little when your cocoon manifested itself in full, not that she doesn't help you fix the hole you made as soon as you get back around to doing that.
Turns out she appreciates a great ride in all forms it may take… Just the kinda girl she is, really. If the drugs and cape stuff hadn't played into it so much, you could totally see her being the girlfriend of some wealthy dude with a whole ton of luxury cars, or a mechanic pimping her own ride for a hobby and maybe even a living.
She's just got that kinda vibe, you know?
Anyways, you make some good progress once you confirm that you're in full working order (and then some), slowly deprogramming the crew from the near-hysterical bug wars they'd gotten up to while you weren't looking and just making sure everyone is doing alright all around, from Kate (who's just been lazing around like the big cat she is sometimes) to the newest addition to your crew.
Nico Robin is… probably just trying to use you somehow, or at least that's the conclusion you come to after talking to her once or twice. She's ready to cooperate with the crew and add her expertise as and when necessary, but she's not really considering herself part of the Dead Sea Pirates, more like a temporary member of a group she's staying ready to distance herself from eventually.
Which, to be fair, is perfectly alright as far as you're concerned. Not that you'd be happy about just letting her go, but if she really wants or needs to, that's that. Thing is, you're pretty sure she's mostly like this because she's just been surfing from one pirate crew to another for most of her life so far or something, from what you've been able to pull out of her, rather than genuinely needing to or being uncomfortable with the Dead Sea Pirates or anything along those lines.
This entire situation will have to be figured out in depth at some point, though you don't think it's all, like, urgent for the moment, so no need to rush her. Nico seems a little like she'd just keep a stoic face, but be a little overwhelmed if you tried to sit down and fix all her problems for her in an afternoon.
Kind of like Taylor when you first met. She really does remind you of an older, more jaded version of her when you killed Lung together, though where Taylor was suffering from crippling loneliness caused by bullying an depression, Nico is after something else entirely, some important goal she's focused her entire life towards.
Something to do with those 'Poneglyphs', you're pretty sure. Hence why she was working with Crocodile and all that. Note to self, get that all untangled and figured out at some point, preferably before it blows up in your face down the lone.
Your newest problem child aside, though, the crew is doing well and really getting into the whole piracy thing, when they aren't busy arguing bugs right now, even taking the initiative to train a little and setting up a little shooting range on the deck, seeing as the space isn't being used for much otherwise thanks to the advanced work distribution of making the Grand Cruiser swim.
As in, nobody has to do much of anything, so they don't need to keep the deck clear the way it'd have to be in normal ships.
So you keep on cruisin' along, making perfectly good time- until something odd happens with the Log Pose Sarah is keeping an eye on, despite how much she's always clinging to you of late, something you noticed she often does after you're cocooned and all.
That is, the needle is pointing upwards all of a sudden, straight up into the sky.
"It must be pointing towards a sky island," Nico says when this phenomenon is brought up with everyone.
"Oh, the place where those Dials come from?" You ask, remembering buying some of those weird shells that can take in and replay sound.
You totally should go up take a look, is all you think.
The journey upwards isn't really anything special, for all that the crew makes a big deal of it, crying and screaming and holding onto anything nearby. Even Nico holds on to her hat as you go, despite that being absolutely no problem; you literally made sure to redirect gravity to make sure nobody can fall off or lose anything as the Grand Cruiser shoots up diagonally, lifted into the sky by its own weight.
The Crabkren is just holding onto it from below, providing you some extra leverage and even course correcting slightly now and then as you command it to nudge the ship a little here and there.
You of course are simply standing at the bow of the ship, casually posing with one foot on the railing as you make the ship look like the stock market index of Cryptic Solutions- going one way only and that one way's up.
Sure, it would've been perfectly possible to not bother making the 'tip' point 'forwards' as you went and just lift the ship up vertically instead, you just chose not to because this looks cooler.
And really, why bother being a pirate breaking all the laws if you can't do it looking awesome as you do it? Especially if you're talking about the laws of physics.
So yeah, the ascent isn't anything to speak of- until you get close enough to the clouds to confirm that there is, indeed, something fucking weird going on up there.
Nothing too obvious from below, but, well, you can literally see the blood signatures of living creatures flitting back and forth up there. Kinda reminiscent of what you normally see in the ocean, so…
When you break through the thick, actually quite massive cover of the clouds, the entire ship engulfed in thick white for several seconds, there's just a little more resistance than you're used to getting from water vapor- and then you're there, noting that the mortal crew couldn't actually breathe for a bit there, as if you actually went through a layer of water.
You didn't really try to breathe yourself, so you basically didn't even notice. Whoops.
But anyways, now you're here- in the midst of a white, cloudy expanse stretching as far as the eye can see, filling out everything in all directions. Off in the distance, you can even make out what looks kind of like a waterfall of clouds, and even the sky above you is filled with, you guessed it, more clouds in turn.
"Well… I think we've arrived somewhere," you note, letting the Grand Cruiser 'fall' onto the clouds; it doesn't sink in far, actually managing to remain buoyant in this environment.
"Figure that. An actual cloud-ocean, complete with stuff that evolved to live in it," Sarah agrees, standing right next to you. "Why even?"
"Well, there's a lot of weird shit around in this dimension," you shrug. "Not that strange to see something like this, right?"
Just then a giant octopus surfaces right next to the ship, a great torrent of air escaping its beak-like maw to produce an excessively aggressive whistling sound. In response, Kate shoots it, popping it like a balloon and making it flail helplessly as the air inside of it starts to push it into random directions.
"Alright, you might have me there," you admit after all. "This is a good case for 'why even'."
There's not really much to be done around here as far as you can make out, so for now you just direct the ship to move towards the cloud-water (cloudfall?) off in the distance. Along the way, some of the crew get it in their heads to try swimming in the clouds, which you allow- though only once they've each got some rope tied around them as lifelines, seeing their inability to fly on their own.
You are, after all, in the sky right now. It's a long way down from here, just saying.
While letting them have their fun, you also discover that there's more kinds of clouds to be discovered yet- some of them, rising out of the 'sea' below, are spongy, but hard enough to remain distinct from the water-like stuff, enough so a person can walk and lie down on them without issue.
You end up stealing a few of those, actually. they're remarkably light, so with some elbow grease you can stuff them into your shadow just fine, just as long as your shadow is large enough at the time; one way or another, having some samples for later can't hurt.
And if you do manage to make use of the things later, they'll make for some excellent padding for just about anything you can think of. A bed of literal clouds? Yes please! Not a real big deal in the grand scheme of things, but you think it'd be cool to have.
Eventually, you reach what seems like a bit more of a manmade structure, however, right at the base of the cloudy waterfall; a large, open gate in front of a spiky, vaguely star-shaped tunnel with a big sign saying 'Heaven's Gate' right up top. Complete with a bunch of sparkly decorations and all to really sell the look.
"Huh, guess we're actually going somewhere now," you say as the Grand Cruiser comes closer. "Who'd have thought, eh?"
"Did you come from here and did it hurt when you hit the earth?" Sarah asks, cuddling into your side as she butchers the already stupid, corny and just all around bad bit of flirting you never once tried to use yourself in your life.
Suffice it to say, you do not dignify it with a response. You also still reach for her back to stroke it once or twice, but that's that.
"Someone's coming," Taylor narrates. She's seeing the same thing you are, naturally, as the blood signature of a small, roughly humanoid-shaped creature comes out of a door in the walls of the tunnel, right in front of the nearest pair of pillars inside of this thing.
An old, positively ancient woman comes tottering onto the walkway at the side, her strained hair kept in two small buns at the top of her head. More importantly, at her back, from somewhere around the shoulder blades, two stunted little white wings jut out past her shoulders.
"Are you here for sightseeing?" She asks, pulling something out of a pocket on her old lady dress as she peers at you past the eyebrows slacking down over her actual eyes, her mouth surrounded by so many wrinkles it barely even looks human-like anymore. "Or… To fight?"
With that, she starts to take pictures of you, your crew and your ship using her little camera, the 'click, click' of the thing irritating your ears as much as the action itself irritates you. In fact, you aren't about to take that at all, you think.
Smiling pleasantly, you push down on the instinctual urge to murder this woman on principle and address her with words instead of one brand of violence or another. "I suppose we'd be here to fight then," you inform her, picking from the choices given instead of making your own for once. "Do we get a menu?"
"…" The old woman stares at you, her beady eyes as inscrutable as they are flat.
"Oh, I mean, do we get options for whom to fight in what order or is it a free-for-all?" You 'correct' yourself, gesturing mildly as you do. "Wouldn't want to mess up any systems the locals have for these kinds of things."
If they're gonna have a gatekeeper literally invite you to commit horrible atrocities against them, you aren't about to object, now are you?
"Actually, it doesn't matter why you're here," the old woman tells you. "If you want to go up, each person must pay a 1 billion extol entrance fee. That's the law."
"Ugh, border customs? Seriously?" To say you're already regretting not beginning this conversation with murder is an understatement.
"You can go even if you don't pay. It 's up to you," the ancient hag lets you know. "I'm not here to stop anyone. I just want to know your… intentions."
"Whelp. We're going up one way or another."
Just as you're about to confirm you fully intend to ignore the entrance fees involved in this obvious tourist trap kind of scam, a popping sound comes from below as a notably fast, large creature approaches the Grand Cruiser and takes hold of the Crabkren below it with two sizable pincers, lifting the whole thing up in one smooth motion.
"That's the White Sea's 'Speedy Shrimp'," the gatekeeper explains, not moving a single muscle.
And with that, the giant, mottled shrimp starts to run, carrying both your ship and your abomination up the waterfall and the winding flow of the cloud-stuff it's made of leading up above in a large spiral.
Well would you look at that, a border agent that just lets you go through without actually giving a fuck. That probably already makes you a criminal or something where you're going, but then, you usually are, so it's really no big change, is it?
It's a bit of a trek up the winding river of clouds that leads you into the upper reaches of the giant cloud construct you've managed to find yourself in, but with the help of the Speedy Shrimp it's really not too bad overall, you gotta say.
Aside from a few short conversations along the way, of course. "Hey captain, does this mean we're, like, going to heaven?" "That shriveled lady had wings, too, like an angel!" "Guess we're actually all dead and we've just been in limbo all along!"
"Hey! No existential dread on the ship!" Sarah reminds the crew, her golden hair flowing in the wind disturbed by your passage. "We made some clear rules about this!"
""Sorry, Miss Sarah!""
Yeah… You probably should snuff this out in the crib. "I can attest we aren't in any sort of afterlife," you announce, arms crossed as you await whatever will happen on the other end of Heaven's Gate. "Just think of whatever we'll find as some weird cloud-based island, 'kay?"
""Aye, capt'n!""
Good. That cleared up, you simply lean back and wait, silently raising an eyebrow at the crew when the next sign along the way comes close enough to be read by them. 'God's Land Skypiea' it says, but nobody raises any further concerns after your declaration.
Good. You'd hate having to reeducate anyone that decided to make an issue of this.
When you actually make it through the final loop of clouds and through what almost looks like a hole in the cloud layer above, the shrimp rushing straight upwards and all but throwing the Crabkren, and the Grand Cruiser along with it, out into what awaits beyond, the sight awaiting you… moderately breathtaking, you suppose.
Lit up by the glow of the sun above, still so distant yet much closer than normal on the surface of the planet, a gently roiling 'sea' of clouds is here, too, except it is also covered by gently drifting 'normal' clouds, their vapor caressing the atmosphere and concealing some directions from easy view. Not far from you, an actual island 'swims' in this terrain, actual plant life growing on it in the form of a variety of tropical-looking vegetation and even palm trees, and large man-made structures can be seen all over parts of it.
Perhaps most importantly, large 'streets' and bridges made of clouds lead away from the island, spiral-like structures made of similar material (though their surface structure is quite different) acting as railing for the things. Very clearly, you're looking at a civilization that thrives by manipulating the clouds themselves, everything you've seen here so far making a lot more sense than before now.
If you were still affected by the sunlight, personally, you'd probably hate it here, what with how much of it there is in all directions, the sun's direct attention nigh impossible to evade for long. As it is, though, you simply determine that you'll have to keep the girls down in the cabins made specially to keep out sunlight unless absolutely necessary while you explore the whole new place opened up for your exploration.
Well then, much as you'd love to go and have a little mini-vacation on this cloudy beach, you're kinda sure the whole, well, not paying the entrance fee thing is probably going to have some consequences at some point if you just go and pretend you're a normal tourist. Also, hiding most of the crew amongst the populace would be kind of a pain if, as you suspect, having wings is the normal and expected thing to do around here.
Those things totally are some regressed version of actual wings, by the way. You didn't have the opportunity to do any in-depth analysis yet, but even a brief glance at the old woman earlier confirmed as much using Yoshi's power.
Speaking of, your most trustworthy borderline sane soul around is currently having one apoplectic fit after another while he's trying to talk some sense into one Father Wales. Good luck and more strength to him, because you for one wouldn't have the patience to discuss matters of faith with a self-anointed prophet that actually has legit prophetic powers going for him.
How else did he figure out you'd be doing some godlike shit before you ever did? Say what you will about Wales, but his mad ramblings and insane cult behavior have all been vindicated of late.
But never mind that side of your business, you've decided, after about two seconds of careful introspection, that you may as well avoid the inevitable drama of dealing with whatever law enforcement they probably have around here and just go explore a bit first and foremost.
You can always get back to discussing the textbook definition of genocide with the natives later on but for now, well, adventure awaits!
"Bold choice, to sail in the opposite direction of the nearest sign of civilization," Nico comments as you set the course, handling the steering wheel (mostly for show, the Grand Cruiser can steer itself just fine).
"Well, we can always go back there, but for now I'm more interested in getting the lay of the land ourselves," you shrug, looking over the admittedly majestic sight of this cloudy ocean. "Any preferences on what to look for?"
"…Any ancient ruins would be preferable," she says, all noncommittal. And obviously not particularly believing you can just pull any of those out your ass.
Joke's on her though as you pull a compass out of a pocket, one of a handful you keep inside your shadow just for occasions like this one. "Find me the nearest ancient ruins," you intone, both yourself and your newest traitorous lieutenant whose inevitable betrayal (or lack thereof) you already await watching as the needle shifts, shivering once or twice.
And then it points straight in one direction and one direction only. Moving the compass left and right a little, you note as the direction shifts accordingly, essentially doing a poor man's job of triangulating the approximate distance and location involved relative to your own.
Then you also tilt the thing, because it's not a three-dimensional compass like you'd prefer using for this if it wasn't too much of a pain to prepare these kinds of things. You can make the basic bitch model of compass work just fine, see?
Anyways, having confirmed those ruins you're looking for now are somewhere in the approximate height range you're in right now as well, you nod, satisfied. "Guess you'll get your wish, then. Setting a new course everyone!"
Off you go to see what this place hides for you to find.
Bounty Update: Leader of the Black Dead Sea Pirates, Wanted Dead or Alive
Crimes: Regicide, Murder, Resistance against World Government Members, Battery, Foul Language, Coffee Endangerment, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Misuse of World Government Property, Murder of Warlord of the Seas Crocodile, Crimes against Member Nations, Denial of World Government Authority, Being Too Handsome
Amount: 300,000,000 Beri
You know, there's a lot of those little things that you don't really bother with in regards to sailing. Your ship can steer itself, it gets its own propulsion, it even reacts to changes in the environment by itself and just all around brings you to wherever you want to go with minimal fuss.
The crew rarely needs to do anything along the way, hence the whole… keeping them busy otherwise you sometimes turn into a way to kill time, whispering inside their heads while you sleep. That's not to say they can't do anything to help, just that it's not really necessary.
"Land in sight! Land in sight!"
That didn't stop you from issuing telescopes to anyone interested and letting them keep lookouts. Sure, your naked eye can see farther than the telescopes' magnification allows, but that way you don't need to pay much attention yourself for the most part.
Plus, you'd notice just about anything actually coming close to the ship through your other senses anyways, so there's barely any issue you can find with this approach.
"Looks pretty overgrown, huh?" You comment as you scan the 'land' in question, really another island sticking out of the clouds like a sore thumb. Enormous trees grow out of a chunk of actual soil, creeping plants draped across some of them, a gigantic forest stretching out before you just like that. "Let's see if we can't find anything interesting in there."
"What about the others?" Robin asks, throwing a glance at the door below deck and leading straight to your cabin.
"Oh, they'll be around to protect the ship, but otherwise mostly taking some time off," you wave her off. "Don't worry about them, they'll help if we need it. For now, let's go explore, just the two of us."
"Really, just us two?"
"Yup!" The sound of splintering wood echoes from below deck. "Let's get going before Sarah breaks anything important!"
"Illegal trespassers have entered the country."
"Again? How many does that make?"
"We received the message from Amazon. Watch out for a particularly handsome man."
Now, there's some that may well argue that it isn't, in fact, the smartest choice to leave most of the crew and the girls behind with the Grand Cruiser, given you fully expect there will be someone or something to fight you somewhere in this place.
Those people are stupid and their opinion doesn't matter, seeing as you simply do not expect to need any numerical superiority on your side to win just about any fight you'll manage to pick and you can always ask them to help you even from afar. Telepathy for the win once again.
Sure, fighting is like partying in that it gets significantly easier and more fun the more friends you have along for the ride (and the less friends someone else has by comparison, for that matter), but let's be real here; ganging up on your enemies may be an excellent strategy to win more often than not, but it's just not really necessary for you at this point.
One more way you've grown past your humble beginnings, perhaps. Used to be you'd make it a point to bring at least a bunch of minions to any potential fight, if you weren't ambushing vulnerable targets one by one anyways, but ever since you started to just fight entire armies by yourself and win, well…
Anyways, the forest. Walking together with Nico, you march straight into it, keeping your compass in one hand and holding onto hers with the other as you ignore Sarah repeatedly questioning you about holding Nico's hand in the background. "The plants and animals here are larger than usual," your companion notes when a couple of giant birds hop across the branches above you.
"Yup. Pretty sure it has something to do with the trace amounts of Seastone in the clouds," you comment, idly keeping an eye out for anything unusual.
"…Are you sure?"
"First thing I did when we arrived up here was run a quick analysis," you assure her, not mentioning you once again used Yoshi for it. Like you usually do whenever you find some new shit that holds your interest for more than a few seconds. "The stuff is probably why the clouds are the way they are, and it would explain the weird fauna and flora around here too."
"I see." Nodding along, Nico doesn't give off any signs as to whether she's convinced or not, her usual mostly impassive mask staying right on her face.
Continuing to follow the directions of your temporarily enchanted compass, you eventually stumble over what appears to be an old spring, the type where people lower buckets and let them fill with water before pulling them out of the shaft dug into the earth and lined with bricks for stability.
It is, of course, completely overgrown far and beyond usability. "Hard to estimate how long it's been abandoned for with the plants the way they are, huh?"
"Definitely more so than any other case I've ever seen," the crew's resident archaeologist notes, gently wiping at the moss-covered stone. "A good sign for more to come, perhaps?"
"I promised ancient ruins, ancient ruins is what we'll get. Simple as that," you shrug.
You take a couple minutes before you finally move on, giving her a little time to investigate this place and all. Man, this actually is getting just a little interesting now, isn't it? Ancient ruins of an unknown civilization, a tropical jungle… All that's missing now are some traps, a cannibal tribe or maybe some giant snakes or tigers or something.
Of course your foray into the depths of this place isn't without its dangers, as it turns out (and you fully expected- this dimension just has that way of making this work out like that). Which you find out in the form of… A perfectly round ball of cloud-stuff, drifting in the breeze amidst the trees.
Naturally, both you and Nico stop and take a closer look at it right away. "This is absolutely some kind of trap, isn't it?"
"Possibly," she nods, walking around the globular object but not coming closer just yet. "Do you think we should touch it?"
"Hmm… Stay back, I'll see what it's about," you agree, reaching out for this thing in short order. May as well figure out what this trap's all about, right?
As soon as your (clawed) fingers touch the spherical cloud, it makes a queer little popping sound, causing… a flower to emerge from it?
"Ho, ho hooo!" Looking up, you find that a whole bunch of these cloud-balls have appeared around you, alongside the almost equally round figure of what you think is another one of the natives from around here- a literally round, rotund male that has to weigh dozens of times the norm for his height, even if you just take his sheer size at face value.
You were tracking him coming closer of course, and it seems this person has been riding one of these clouds in your direction so far, seeing as his by comparison comically shaped and sized limbs haven't been moving much along the way. Long, red hair spills out from under his simple hat, thick, yellow-lensed glasses concealing half his face from view, and you're pretty sure he's actually wearing a onesie that absolutely had to be a custom order for him.
The linked ring motif on it completes the look along with the thick, orange gloves and boots, but to be honest you're barely paying attention to him- being both a guy and a stranger coming up to you in the middle of the woods, you rate the chances of yourself eating him in the next, oh, ten to twenty minutes at most to be pretty high, just speaking from past experience.
"A lucky one! These are called 'Surprise Clouds'. Welcome to my Ordeal of Orbs!"
…Immediately losing any and all interest in this guy, you turn back to Nico. "Think it's worth the bother to poke these things for anything interesting or should we just keep going?"
"That's likely the wisest decision," she agrees, impassively studying this new person interrupting your pleasant little walk.
"Ho, ho hooo! Intruders in the Land of God, Upper Yard! Know that-"
Ugh, this little motherfucker is talking too much.
Shaking your head, you decide you may as well get the snacking out of the way so you can then keep going unimpeded. Holding up a finger, you gesture for this fat sack of a person (look, you don't wanna fatshame, but he's kinda demanding you comment on it with his build) to do what he should've done the moment he showed up in your presence.
Be quiet and pray you don't bother to deal with him. Though just 'shutting the fuck up' works for you as well, you'll admit.
"You really chose the wrong walk to get in the way of, buddy," you tell him, staring him down for a moment. "Guess what, you're today's first snack."
With that said, you spark up, not bothering to waste any more time and attention than this. It'd be a different story if you were particularly invested into this guy's demise or actually hungry for a fight, but as it is, he's just kind of in your way, so…
The meatball of a man in question actually tries to react a second or two before you hit him in the form of a man-sized stream of lightning, electrocuting him real good, but well, slightly uncanny reaction time or not, he is not, in fact, faster than lightning. So you impact him just fine, ramming your electric self straight through the bulk of his body and turning into a sizable pillar of pure, incandescent might.
He dies instantly, brain just as fried as the rest of him. His blood evaporates, flesh carbonizing (despite how much of it there is), all that you leave behind as you finally step out of him a charred-black corpse.
Its soul safely contained along with the rest, of course.
"You know, I could get used to this whole Logia business," you comment mildly, rejoining Nico with another quick lightning step back onto the ground next to her.
Alright, so while Satori's use of Mantra (aka Observation Haki) was somewhat sub-par, what with him just dropping the ball with it somewhat easily, he still was pretty damn dangerous overall, considering his masses of prepared traps and weapons, the Dials he used as his personal weapons and the aforementioned use of Mantra, plus the somewhat low morality, all mean that he's still worth a full 10 BP far as I'm concerned.
BP now at 155
In several places nearby, several individuals noticed the sudden end of one of the more notable individuals on the island. One drew his eyebrows together, his lips sucked inside his mouth as he silently mumbled something about Satori's weakness.
One bemoaned the weakness of mankind at large, while another already considered how to circumvent the rules usually restraining their group from potentially interfering with one another.
One regarded this change with mild interest, entirely uncaring about the casualty and rather more concerned about the opportunity it presented. And, somewhat further out… Someone shivered at the sensation of the cessation of life.
A meeting was called in short order so a certain deity may command its followers to cease pretending at civility at all, suspending many of the usual rules to deal with this unusual situation. And, at the epicenter of all these things, another certain god digested some of the knowledge he had just gained.
"Turns out this island just suddenly appeared in the sky a couple hundred years ago. Oh, and they call their ruler their 'god', but it's a surprisingly non-religious title for the people here," you explain to Nico as you go. "The guy I just took out was one of the 'priests' serving him by regularly killing anyone the regime took an issue with, or that was just convenient for them to single out."
"Fascinating. Particularly the sudden appearance of the island," Nico remarks, seemingly focused entirely on the thing she's actually after. "Will you be able to fight off any others if they interrupt us?"
"Eh, probably," you shrug, lifting up a low-hanging branch as thick as your thigh so she can pass below it. "From what the guy I fried knew, most of them shouldn't be an issue, aside from their god himself. Might be some collateral damage there."
Turns out this Enel guy might be a slight issue, in that he's got one thing in common with you. Not being a god, of course- his is just a title when you're the real thing now- but rather the kind of devil fruit both of you ate.
Where you ate the Goro Goro No Mi, a Logia if you've ever seen one, he ate a similar one in the form of the Gira Gira No Mi- roughly meaning the Sunshine Sunshine Fruit. The really hot, glaring kind of sunshine, that is, when it's summer and you risk heatstroke just outside near where it comes down.
Satori (that's the man you fried until he was beyond crispy) had no real idea exactly how powerful Enel is, despite having the power of Mantra; or, as Crocodile's memories insist on calling it, Observation Haki, a specialized application of the weird soul flexing he, too, was capable of, if not to this extent.
Enel actually chose his priests based on their talent for this particular skill you're pretty sure, one that he himself seems to be highly versed in. It allows the user to sense things at great distances, meaning that your presence in this place has very likely been discovered already for once (good thing the element of surprise isn't what most of your plans hinge on these days).
It also lets you just accurately predict the actions of people based on miniscule body language cues, tensed musculature, stuff like that, effectively providing short-term combat precognition if you're good enough with it. Satori actually realized he'd die a moment before you went ahead and obliterated him, funnily enough.
But, well, none of that matters for the moment. Right now, all you're doing is exploring the jungle for ancient ruins in the full knowledge that the next couple meals you're looking to eat already are likely to come for you sometime soon-ish.
"Then please make sure not to destroy any ruins we happen to find," Nico cautions you, grabbing a hanging vine and giving it a quick tug to test its stability.
Huffing in amusement, you gesture towards her, redirecting her weight for a moment to let her just float across a gap in the ground alongside yourself. "I'll see what I can do," you say, keeping an eye or two out for any attackers coming by to feed themselves to you.
Time to see about these ruins already.
Curiously, it seems you actually do manage to remain relatively undisturbed over the, oh, around twenty minutes it takes you to reach the ruins in question, no more particularly zealous government officials (which is what you've decided these 'priest' guys are now) crossing your path in the meantime.
They're most likely busy figuring out what, exactly, happened and what to do about it… Or else occupied with that vaguely homo-erotic mutual rivalry they've got going on according to Satori's memories. They might be somewhat biased, of course, but you are fairly sure they don't get along all that well, based on what you now know.
That might be useful to work with later. Or at least it's a good indicator that you won't have to deal with all of them teaming up to ambush you or anything. Good enough for you either way.
At any rate, you make some good progress through the jungle, so before long you arrive where you meant to go from the start; amidst overgrowing trees, vines snake across ancient (or, y'know, at least pretty damn old) structures, some of which still stand more or less upright despite the vegetation's best efforts.
It kind of reminds you of, like, ancient Mayan ruins and stuff. Nico, for her part, is quietly overjoyed at the sight, walking from one piece of stone to the next as she flips through what looks to be a reference notebook on some of the hieroglyph-like writing you're seeing here and there.
"Hmm… A tombstone for the city?" She remarks, coming to a halt in front of what seems like a large epitaph to your untrained eyes. "It was probably constructed after the city itself fell…"
Standing next to her, you once again confirm that it's pretty damn similar to ancient Mayan slash Aztec shit. Hieroglyphs, some chiseled faces here and there- you could slam this thing right into the middle of the South-American jungle and it wouldn't look out of place in the least.
"Around 1100 years old, give or take," you announce after a quick go with your good old analysis power. Well, 'yours'. Same difference in the end, no matter how much Yoshi complains.
"Shandora…" She sounds out, trying out the words indicated by what she's reading. "The name of the ancient city?"
Stepping closer, Nico runs a hand over some of the stone's surface, tracing the symbols and wiping some moss aside.
"Year… 402? Indeed, 1100 years ago. Time of destruction is… 800 years ago…! That falls into the period of the Void Century. Maybe this island contains part of the history that was not passed on on the ground."
Eyes wide, it seems Nico is currently having the time of her life. You suppose any questions will have to wait for later.
Rapidly moving a pencil across paper, she notes something down, making a quick sketch of a section of the epitaph. "This should be a map of Shandora. At least of how it looked like once. If we go to the city square, we can probably find out more."
"To the city square it is, then," you shrug, having already memorized the map she just jotted down. "On the way you can tell me about this Void Century and why it's so important, if you feel like it…"
While Gabriel and Nico were off gallivanting around the overgrown flora, back at the Grand Cruiser a slight bit of an… issue… was being had. Mostly in the form of one Sarah Livsey (and everyone better call her by her birth name, or else) having a mild squabble with Kate and Taylor, the girl and woman cooperating to keep her from doing anything unwise.
That was, the blonde was absolutely itching to go out and join that little date the aforementioned two were having, just because she couldn't, in good conscience, leave her brother alone with a woman he wasn't already fucking anyways!
Popping out on deck after sliding through animated and non-animated dead matter alike, she was of course confronted with the reality of Taylor already being there and waiting for her, outspeeding the blonde by virtue of technically already being there. "You still can't," she told her, impassively shaking her head.
"You don't understand- the anomaly grows every time he gets away with this kind of thing! We have to keep it in check somehow!"
"…Pretty sure you just really don't want more girls taking up time right now," the dark-haired girl said, the buzz of unseen creepy-crawlies in her voice.
"That's completely secondary to the point," Sarah insisted. "I'm trying to hold back here, I really am, but I swear if they hook up, I'll-"
"You'll be all smug about another girl falling for the big guy," Kate drawled, joining them on deck now. "We know you, sweetie."
All three of them were fully invested in what was going on right now- Sarah wanted to dash off and go find her brother, the other two wanted to keep her from doing anything unwise (such as starting to stab any women that so much as looked at her brother, opening the floodgates for more insanity than would be good for anyone).
All of them were fully aware of the man flying atop the back of a giant bird steadily coming closer, their shared telepathic bond ensuring he was spotted long ahead of time. He simply didn't matter all that much to any of them.
When he finally came close enough to be seen, his heavy lance raised and all that, he never saw the fatally encumbering silk coming as it began to entangle him, an entire system of flying insects carrying string after string into position. Then, without even letting him speak or, really, do anything of note, all those strings were pulled taut by a suddenly merging mass of bugs, an entire swarm of surprisingly strong flyers in action.
The bird's wings were tangled up and stopped cold, its surprised, fire-puffing squawk as fruitless as the man's immediate attempt to free them, recognizing his own trick being used against him, only using silk instead of woven cloud threads.
He did not have much time to do any such thing, of course. Instead, the swarm proceeded to, well, swarm him and his mount, clouds of bloodbugs aggressively draining every drop of blood out of both and even collecting the bodies afterwards.
Back on the ship, the stalemate continued, Sarah trying to convince the other two to let her go be a third wheel only for them to be absolutely unreasonable about it. Not a single comment was wasted on the obvious outcome of anyone trying to come attack them.
"We've found the town center, but…"
"Yeah, the buildings don't match up," you agree, canvassing the surrounding area using a handful of bat bodies you split off on the sly earlier. Hey, you literally live with Taylor and are wired into her brain most of the time, it shouldn't be any surprise you've started learning a few of her tricks.
Or at least imitating them as best you can. Same difference, really.
"More and more clues hint at this place having come from the sea below us," Nico notes, likewise taking a look around. "The displacement would explain everything being so… jumbled."
"Say, are we going to talk about the bean stalk in the room?"
Tilting your head in its direction, you speak up about the one mild issue with any plans for exploring this place- in the middle of the ruins, a pair of giant beanstalks winds up into the sky (or, well, even further into the sky). The enormous plants are constructing a spiral between the two of them, and midway along their visible length a bunch of ruins is stuck on a platform of somewhat solid clouds anchored to the massive green stalks.
Passing by small, pyramid-shaped buildings and what looks kind of like a couple vaguely human-shaped idols, you're currently slowly moving into its general direction, so you figured you may as well bring it up.
"Not yet. There's something else I wanted to look at first." Nico shakes her head, heading into a nearby part of the collapsed ruins all around the area. "Take a look at the ground. If this island really used to be down in the sea, why are we walking on clouds?"
Huh. You know what, that is a great point- you hadn't even thought about it. "Good catch. You're thinking all we see is the tops of the ruins?"
"Possibly. That's why we're checking that theory out first." You don't particularly protest when Nico decides to take charge of your little expedition, instead just letting her do her thing and helping her along as appropriate.
Once she's decided on the best place to start digging down, she pulls out a knife, for example, only for you to wave her off and start to dig into the clouds using your claws much faster than she could carve open a path.
Crouching at the top of the tunnel you create, she just looks down, her cowboy-esque hat (did she get that one from the one island you destroyed on the way to Arabasta?) shading her eyes. "You look just like a dog when you do that," she smiles ever-so-slightly, eyeing the discarded cloud-matter your claws are shoveling up so you can make them float up and off to the side.
You'd do this in a more dignified manner, but you're trying to be careful about damaging the ruins down here and all that. Doubly so seeing as you can feel them, now that you know to pay attention and not just shrug off weird weight distribution as part of the whole 'everything's floating on clouds here' thing.
"I'd say something about being a doggy with style, but I'm not sure the joke translates well," you drawl, the tips of your fingers finally reaching into the semi-solid cloud you've been digging into- and reaching an open area instead now. "Ah, found it- there's some open room down here."
Nico immediately jumps into your hole, one of your arms snapping upwards to catch her while the other one drags the cloud open, widening the bottom and revealing what you just mentioned. The two of you land down below, one of her hands adjusting her hat while the other holds onto your shoulder opposite the one she's now sitting on.
"There we are. Another layer to the ruins," she says, satisfied.
You take a quick look around. Looks like you're inside a building of some kind- artfully carved pillars poke through the clouds covering both the ceiling and the floor, but a few stairs lead away from of the point you landed in.
"Well then- time to explore, huh?"
"I never would've thought that there'd be completely untouched poneglyphs here…" Looking over the inscription covering a good chunk of a particular wall you've found, navigating the imposing ruins of this ancient city, Nico steps closer, tracing the symbols with the tips of her fingers. "…'Truth in our Heart and our Mouth sealed, we are those who record history with the sound of the Great Belfry'…"
"Sounds like there's a place to visit somewhere around here, huh?" You comment, memorizing the entire thing for later reference.
"…All the books in the city were burned," Nico points out, referring to the ancient traces of soot you found earlier. "Its entire history was lost, but some Poneglyphs were taken into the city, I'm sure of it!"
"Mhm, makes sense so far," you shrug.
"This city once had to fight an enemy to protect the Poneglyphs, and was destroyed!"
"Is that how it went?" You cross your arms, tempted to shrug again. "According to the map, the belfry would be… in the central position between four altars, right?"
"Let's take a look," the Grand Cruiser's resident archaeologist agrees, gesturing for where you should be going.
Honestly, you might not particularly share her passion for discovering lost history or anything, but this is all kind of cool, you'll admit. You might just have a thing for ancient ruins or maybe it's Nico's excitement starting to be contagious, but-
"We've got incoming," you say, sensing the blood signatures of a bunch of people coming in your direction. Winged people, too.
"…Cart rails," she points out in turn as you make a halt right around an intersection they run through. "Something heavy was moved here. They're new, too."
You hear them before they even show themselves, the resounding sound of dozens of people just bleating in unison for some reason. Not even commenting on that, you simply await their arrival, Nico standing in the back as she looks over a nearby part of the ruins- she's likely still looking for the location of the bell, you think.
Then they come into view. Gathering all over the nearby ruins, they're bald figures with a pair of wings and horns jutting from their foreheads each, most of them bald and dressed in pure white robes. From the sides of their heads, some weird additional organs hang down, smooth pieces of flesh covering their ears.
These would be the Divine Soldiers, basically Enel's personal goon squad going around on his orders, protecting his place, that kind of thing. Question is what they're doing here. An answer, you do believe, might be found in the double-chinned, comparatively more hairy and more elaborately clothed presence of their commander, a man you know to be named Yama.
He's also grotesquely oversized and deformed in that way you've seen a couple times now, having basically no neck and an almost triangular head, fat, wide-drawn lips and absurdly short, slender limbs compared to his overall body size. To be honest, this guy could just star in horror movies and he wouldn't need any makeup to sell the monster role, in your own humble opinion.
You also just so happen to know (from the memories of the Priest you ate) his main weapon is concealed within the sash wrapped around his body in the form of ten Axe Dials, Dials that take in kinetic energy (as a good few of them do, interestingly) and then releasing it in the form of a narrow, cutting beam of power with extremely short range when triggered, the result looking a lot like, well, a hit by an axe, hence the name.
"Sinners!" Yama announces, his voice sounding a lot like you'd imagine by his looks. "Prepare to be judged by God Enel's Divine Soldiers!"
"What, not even gonna preach about how great your god is?" You quip. "Or about just how justified you are killing anyone he tells you to without question?"
"Words are wasted on the likes of you anyways. Divine Soldiers! Attack!"
For a moment, you don't bother to act yourself, letting the men wearing these white outfits (and gloves, you silently add, under which they keep their Dials) complete their encirclement both atop and inside the ruins around you. Behind you, Nico has turned around, her back to yours.
"Should we run?" She asks, perfectly calm despite the situation; her heartbeat is a little elevated, but it's purely there to keep her ready for action, no nervousness nor fear in either it or her scent.
"Nah, no need," you shrug, waving her off uncaring that she can't actually see you do it. "Just keep yourself safe, I'll take care of this."
With that, the invisible tension of the brewing fight… breaks, everyone moving at once. Yama, the commander of your enemies here, takes a step back, observing as his subordinates rush at you from all sides. Nico, on the other hand, reaches out towards one of the ruins nearby, additional arms growing from her hand one by one until she can simply pull herself up and out of the way of the incoming onslaught.
""Baaaaaaaaaa!"" Bleating, the Divine Soldiers choose to concentrate their attention on you, training and strategy culminating in a wordless agreement to test your strength before they split up. And, as for yourself-
Your head grows and grows in size, savage snout pushing itself into place to reveal rows of curved, pointy teeth the size of swords, no fur sprouting from your skin as instead scales take its place, a few random eyes popping up here and there across your skull. To be honest, you may have gotten a little sloppy about your shapeshifting, not having used it all that much in a hot minute or two, but the broad strokes of your intended transformation work out well enough for your purposes anyways.
A wild cross between a wolf's and a snake's head, that is, maw snapping open only to close around the first charging soldier, biting him cleanly in half. The lower half of his body is snatched up in your second bite, of course, swallowed whole as you step forwards to carelessly dodge his comrades' attempts at retribution.
A suddenly-grown tail slams out of your backside, feathered and sinuous, ramming straight into the next soldier behind you. A second head then grows out of your shoulder as your first one returns to its original proportions, an equally oversized snake's neck and body following it so its avian beak can snap up your second victim before it can fly far with the force of the impact.
The Divine Soldiers stop, a shared moment of 'what-the-fuck' manifesting itself among all nearby combatants. You, on the other hand, lick all three of your lips, as an additional mouth just came out of your side, this one just a collection of teeth, a split tongue and a hole leading to the approximate location of your stomach.
"Well? Weren't you attacking?" You ask in three distorted voices at once, clawed hand motioning for them to come at you already. "Or are you too afraid in the face of a real God?"
"Hmph!" Yama, still staying a bit out of reach (or at least he thinks you can't reach him from here), crosses his horrible little mini-arms suited better for a normal-sized person than… whatever permutation of 'xxxl' he counts as.
That seems to be enough for the mooks to act, bleating in determined anger as they get back to it. "For God Enel! Axe Dial!"
…Calling out their attacks is maybe not the smartest of moves, but then, these literally are weaklings, you should probably not expect too much from them. Thrusting out their palms, several of these little guys try to hit you at once-
Invisible, slicing force impacts yourself, particularly along the scaled neck you're sticking out your shoulder right now as they seem to have decided to focus their efforts on it. In response… You don't really give a fuck, though.
See, this kind of thing, this level of kinetic energy and sharpness? It'd be enough to cut the average bloke to pieces, you're pretty sure. Against your hardened, reinforced skin? Empowered by a dozen or so kinds of demonic essence, wrapped around your native brand of reality warping for added durability and protected by a layer of Aura?
You hardly feel much at all. What would be a few scrapes is all absorbed by your Aura and these Divine Soldier guys have absolutely nothing to show for their efforts.
"Useless," you helpfully inform them, proceeding to grab one of them to stuff him headfirst into your side-mouth (that has been growing extra teeth all this while, too), his cries silenced in short order. "Should I take it a little slower for you? Give you a couple more free shots?"
""Meeeeh!"" They don't seem to appreciate your generosity, pulling back towards their commander as best they can.
That won't do, of course. "No."
You snap your fingers. All of them fall down, as though nailed to the ground, barely capable of any movement at all.
"You tried to fight me, so you get to die. I don't exactly have a habit of leaving enemies alive."
One by one, the Divine Soldiers erupt into fountains of blood that are then drawn into your beaked maw, determination and anger turning into fear, horror and, ultimately, despair. Not that you draw it out all that much- within less than a minute, all of them are dead and safely deposited inside your stomach.
"Now then, you want a go or are you giving up, big guy?" You smirk at Yama.
"Hmph," he repeats, his face not having budged a single bit. "I see the Divine Soldiers have proven useless. What a waste of time."
You know, you really don't want to be all judgemental about this, but these guys really should work on their workplace motivators and employee benefits. Sure, it might be kind of hypocritical coming from you, given you're the one that just horribly murdered them through eating the entire department, but the Divine Soldiers they had around here honestly could've used, say, a superior that actually cares about them for a start.
Or some more training instructions than people stronger than them telling them they're weak. Maybe some decent food they didn't have to forage for themselves. These guys were dealt a rough deal, is what you're getting at.
Then again, they were part of this administration because they knew of Enel's personal strength and were utterly convinced he was their 'god', not because they worshipped him or anything but rather because they had full faith in his power to wipe them all from existence at any time he wished to.
It's more akin to the old meaning of god-fearing; literally fear of god driving you to pray, you suppose. As such, being treated less shitty would've made no real difference in their loyalty, admittedly- you would've just done things differently, is all.
"That's one way to put it, I suppose." Not that you're about to really get into that with the guy in charge of them. Or formerly in charge of them, you suppose. There's still a couple Divine Soldiers scattered here and there on the island, assisting some of the Priests, guarding God's Shrine and all that, but the majority just managed to end up in your belly already. "So how do you want to do this? You gonna come at me, should I come at you?"
"Stomach Mountain!" Jumping with deceptive levels of strength and agility despite his frame, Yama launches himself at you, his plan of attack seemingly consisting solely of… using his considerable weight to body slam you.
You, naturally, are much faster than him, so rather than face that one head-on, you vault right over him as he comes, pushing off his shoulder with one hand as you somersault above him.
"Rude little guy, aren't you?" You say, watching him crash straight into the ancient stone behind. And tearing straight through it, his body acting a lot like a wrecking ball would.
From above, where Nico has been observing things so far, murderous intent radiates with a clarity and intensity that has you think of Taylor for a split second.
"Ugh, you're really just making this harder for yourself, you know?" You roll your eyes and shake your head at these antics. "Not like you really stand a chance here to begin with."
"Silence, wrongdoer! Your words have as much meaning as the murmurings of the sky worms!"
You sigh, a few sparks forming across the surface of your body, snaking from your clothes.
"Some people just can't wait to die, huh?"
It's only right that you grant his wish, then.
Performing the same trick you used against Satori, you let yourself come apart, turning into a brilliant bolt of light and energy and sheer electric motion, sparked to ever greater heights of energetic devastation by your will alone. You hit Yama like, well, a streak of lightning, hitting him from all sides at once as you pull yourself together, your form running through his veins, frying him from the inside.
His blood is vaporized and absorbed into yourself, his muscle and fat charred into blackened, flaking uselessness, his hair burned away in moments. What remains of his insides is flash-cooked before it, too, burns away entirely, despite the… generous volume you're dealing with.
Up and down the spine you go, scouring the entire body for every scrap of blood and soul and intact flesh. Yama doesn't have much time to scream, nor to feel pain- his entire nerve system just shuts down fairly quickly, by your own standards rather than normal measurements of time.
You still take a little bit longer, because even compared to Satori, this man's got a lot of body to burn through. But burn through it you do, your electric judgement laid down squarely and thoroughly.
When you finally flash back out of him, all that remains is a mountain of ash, held aloft only by its own weight and what pieces of carbonized bone still remain.
"You can come down now, by the way," you say after a moment or two. "Though I doubt you'll be any less pissed once you hear what I have to say about what they did here."
Jumping down onto a series of her own hands stretching from the ruins' weathered stones, Nico Robin lands next to you, taking a quick look at all the terribly dead bodies lying around you now. "Shoot."
"This entire ancient city?" You gesture around you, indicating the entirety of the ruins. "Used to be all covered in gold. The cart tracks were laid down here to move all of it away after they tore it off so they could melt it down, destroying all inscriptions and art it was used for."
"…To be honest, I am more interested in the belfry, but that does annoy me," she admits.
Alright, so… The true soul's an obvious full ten, but Yama, on the other hand, does take a moment of thought. In the end, despite him being pretty weak compared to most real combatants around, the level of danger he still poses against what we usually measure against still rate him far and beyond what the average person would expect to deal with.
So I'm gonna just shrug and make him a full ten as well, it just takes a bit of convincing myself along the way.
BP now at 175
Progress now at 3/90
It was hard. Work to raise some manner of shelter before the merciless, icy winds progressed quickly, not because it was easy nor for the availability of materials, but rather because it was necessary. Even having reached the place all their hopes had been placed in, and beyond all probability finding something that would let them survive as well, immediate survival was far from guaranteed.
The instructions that stared at any that dared to read the mysterious book they'd found were what allowed them to make it. Those and the stockpile of building materials not too far from the site, likely left there when the Generator's construction was abandoned for some unknown reason. Whether it was trouble with the workers, unmet project deadlines, insufficient engineers being available at the time- one way or another, it had been meant to be built but wasn't.
This still left the survivors of London with some sheets of metal, no construction equipment beyond some old hammers they found amidst the abandoned site and neither wood nor coal to burn for warmth. Not exactly the most rosy of prospects for their group, all in all.
Until the first of them asked to see the book again. The book that, upon being opened, always showed the same pages now, the dark red writing on them just barely visible whether in the thickest of the unceasing blizzard surrounding them or when the sun abandoned them entirely for the evening.
Following these instructions, metal was made smooth, then half-liquid, one desperate prayer, one sheet at a time. They worked for one day and one night, every last man, woman and child. There was no time to rest, not with the cold gnawing away at all of them, driving into their flesh and tearing into bone like nails made of approaching doom.
Somehow, they did it. The sheets of steel and iron were not so much hammered in place as they were drawn, pulled and stretched to become a seamless dome covering those lucky enough to have made it this far. Warped and twisted to the eyes, it was a welcome sight nevertheless, particularly once their little shelter began to warm up with the body heat of everyone inside.
It would not be sufficient for long, of course, but even without light, sacrificed to keep them safe from the cold, at least one person could still read their new holy book at a time.
And so they did, reciting lines one at a time, until their hoarse voices broke and they could read no longer. Breathing in the slowly depleting oxygen, the temporary reprieve they were granted was used to let all regather some of their strength, tired limbs stretching out as fear, excised through the grueling labor, was held at bay only by the absence of cold.
They still needed food. And fresh air. And plenty of things besides, lest they degenerate into troglodytes.
Before long, they constructed an entrance, working around the clock once again to create an airlock, of sorts, and some more openings to let them cycle in fresh air without letting in too much of the cold.
And so they began to explore, guided to survival by their newfound gospel. They found coal, and wreckage to scavenge, and though it was little they could hunt for food as well. Life continued to be harsh, harsher than any of them had ever known it, but through scrapes and lost loved ones and hunger and fear, they pushed through no matter what.
The beacon of hope had been lit, it had been carried onwards, and as they turned to expand their pathetic little shelter, good only for those less than human until they went on to light their fires and build rooms for individual families one by one, their hope became burning, sickening bonfire shared between each and every one of them.
So it came that when a small band of would-be bandits, robbers out to take any food and warmth another had found for themselves, came upon them, it was the men and women of New London that took up arms to defend themselves. Twisted, hooked pieces of metal, spears of polished stone, broken from the mines, some descended upon those that would assail them with bare hands alone, the anger and hatred for any that came for their community overcooking within them, boiling them alive.
Even the children cornered one or two of them. Tore them apart alive. And when it was done, stark red blood freezing on the ice below, they talked amongst themselves.
Because a choice had to be made. A choice made about a line drawn, and whether to toe it or step right over.
And how far, for that matter.
Despite the hunts, food had been scarce, so scarce some of them were more bone than flesh, driven on more by pure willpower than nourishment.
Would doing this turn them into subhuman things after all? Animals pretending at something other than what they were? Or… would it merely make the point that any that came to attack them and theirs were mere animals themselves instead?
The book, laid upon the altar they had raised out of black stone right above where it was found, told them that only their own opinion mattered. No others had the right to judge them.
And so New London feasted, corpses carried into its airlock never to come out again. The blood that went yet unspilled they brought back as well, for they knew of its importance, and they hung up the bodies above the altar, a former butcher slitting them open to let it spill red and raw all over, drenching their holy symbol, christening their devotion.
They had received much. Now, they were determined they had to return something, anything, because they owed as much.
The next day, strange plants were seen growing from the black stone, their softly glowing stalks hanging heavy with a single grain each.
…You know, when you started to really become aware of yourself as a whole, you kind of had an inkling some fucky shit was going to result from that. It was pretty much clear from the start.
Still, randomly getting a handful of souls dropped into your inner world because an ever-so-slightly unhinged cult somewhere out there in the fucking multiverse decided to dedicate their killing to you? After Wales ran around bribing Julianne to get access to the practical material science bullshit from Academy City he transcribed into his copy of the weirdly magical book he wrote himself?
…And then him accessing your archived memories inside the Library to basically draw on your experience genetically modifying plants in particular to create a food source for them that then proceeded to actually grow from the human sacrifice altar they built for you for good measure?
Yeah, so this is a whole thing now, you suppose. Not that you're complaining, mind you, it's just kind of a new experience to have community outreach based on religious principles happen from inside your soul. Towards the outside. In another dimension you never visited.
But hey, good on them to make things work out for themselves all around. Even Yoshi is getting into things- grumbling, bitching and moaning all the way, but even he agrees that nobody deserves to freeze to death because the planet decided it gets super cold now on a whim. He's still not happy they're being saved by praying to you- but it beats them not being saved at all, apparently.
Turns out he can do some actual good even now after all. In some ways, that's all he wanted to do all along, as you know damn well on account of literally being inside his head twenty-four seven same as all the other souls you've consumed.
Directly or indirectly. Hm. Might be worth it to actually go out of your way a little every now and then to have this little cult in the middle of a frozen wasteland thrive, just because they can give you fresh new souls to add to your collection… And because they praise and worship your name, you suppose.
Is this how a successful cult leader kind of guy feels like? The type that gets people to worship them as, like, prophets or deities and shit? Fuck, you might actually be getting into this. Your ego might swell up to new, never-before-seen sizes at this rate, huh?
Not that any of this is acutely relevant right now, in the middle of these ancient ruins. Literally in the middle, looking up at the twin beanstalks aound around each other growing out of this place, stretching towards the sound in a helix of thick, green plant matter.
"The bell was supposed to be here. Do you think it made it up into the sky?"
"Hard to say," you shrug in response to Nico's query. "If it didn't, we can just search the seafloor, but for now I'd say we check the top of the beanstalks."
"…Are we going to climb?"
"Do I look like I have the patience for that?"
Some people would, predictably, balk at the task of trying to climb up the beanstalks stretching upwards towards the sun. Those people really should rethink the moral of the good ol' fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk- that one guy climbed up into the sky without complaints, why can't they?
Heck, this one literally doesn't need you to climb into the sky, it's rooted in the sky itself to begin with. Not to mention the stalks are wide enough you wouldn't even really have to climb, per se- just pick one of them and start walking, they're angled gently enough it would just be a winding little marathon for most of the distance involved.
Sure, in this place so far up in the literal clouds, with less oxygen than closer to the planet's surface, it would be absolutely excruciating if you're one of those 'breathing' types. But theoretically, it would be completely possible. In fact, that's how Enel's goons get up there, as you know from the memories you've absorbed so far- his 'shrine' is up there, for as much as you will use that word to describe the seat of a place's government.
Yes, the Skypiean terminology for their government is still grating at you a little, how'd you know?
But regardless, none of the exact small-people-difficulties in ascending the beanstalk really matter to you, given you're way past that phase of your life by now. It's really sad how some others never manage to grow out of those. Now, while you could just sprout some wings and get flyin', grabbing Nico in a set of talons (or carrying her in your arms, for that matter) would just be kind of awkward, not to mention potentially uncomfortable for her, so instead you opted to simply play around with the universal constant of gravity a little.
You and the black-haired archaeologist are simply floating upwards, a gentle 'fall' in the opposite direction of down seeing you make your way where you want to go in a controlled ascent. Half-sitting, half-standing as far as her posture goes, Nico is staying alert while maintaining her poise, making it a point to look as unaffected by what's going on as she can.
Personally, you're hoping she'll break her facade soon, but for now she's entirely undaunted, outwardly. Then again, you don't exactly make it a point to show off your phenomenal cosmic powers normally, so she hasn't been hit with any of the really good stuff yet.
Ah well, all in its own time, you suppose. For now all you need to do is-
"Oh hey, I know who those two are," you note when you spy two identical figures racing down the beanstalks, every step a half-hop to make their gait look pretty comical from afar, despite the good time they're making.
"Really?"
"Vice leaders of the militia I took out earlier. Hotori and Kotori, the brothers of that Priest, Satori," you explain. Their builds really do resemble his, too- they may be much smaller, but their torsos are just as round. You wonder whether that was a thing from the time they were born- their poor mother must've had a hard time popping out literal volleyball-shaped babies.
"Should we do anything about them?" Nico asks, eyes tracking what she unmistakably considers a potential threat.
"Nah, don't worry about them. The crew will take care of things just fine." If they work together, even your minions should be able to deal with their Dial combinations, and worst case the girls will just have to deal with things if they screw it up worse than you expect them to. Speaking of, though-
Ah. You were playing around with Satori's Mantra for a bit while you were flying up, and as it turns out this island is getting a few more visitors now, too. The… Shandians, you think Yama calls them, would be the people you're sensing?
Things are about to get a little more interesting around here, you guess. Or you get to crush a few more idiots while playing around with Nico. Same difference as to your enjoyment of things, really.
On the edge of Upper Yard, the holy land of God himself, just off the coast in fact, there was a ship. Floating on the gentle undulations of the White-White Sea, distinct of course from the White Sea below it, its design clearly marked it as coming from the Blue Seas, rather than a Skypiean ship.
Normally unthinkable to find anchored in this place; God's Army would have removed it with all due thorough vigor under most circumstances. However, as the approaching Shandian warriors knew, circumstances were anything but ordinary- no less than two Priests and most of God Enel's Divine Soldiers had already been wiped out, so once the girl in the village had confirmed what she'd sensed, crying in fear all the way, they'd decided to take their chances.
All they needed was to kill Enel. With his small army at his beck and call, they never had been able to so much as get to him, but now… Now they might just manage to return to their long-lost homeland.
After 400 years of struggle, victory might finally be within their grasp. No amount of warnings about sure death should they meet whoever it was that had been taking out their enemies so far was enough to stop the proud warriors of Shandia as they sped through the clouds, leaving trails of sea-clouds in their wake as their Dials let them cruise ahead in a way only the warriors of the sky could.
At the same time, the vice-leaders of the Divine Army were rushing out to meet the killers of their big brother, intent on avenging him with the same laughing cheer they put into any other task they had. The fact they'd completely missed the one actually responsible, of course, was lost to them entirely.
As fate would have it, all three of these parties would clash all at one point, converging without meaning to. And so the Shandians and the brothers saw each other at the same time as they saw the ship- its deck seemingly empty safe for a single young woman lying down on a plush chair, sunglasses on her freckled face and wearing nothing but a dark red bikini as she sunned herself.
"…Next time, I'm gonna make Gabe tell me about these things ahead of time," Sarah grumbled as she considered whether or not to call in the others as opposed to taking care of this whole mess herself.
"Meeeh! You killed our brother!"
"Meeeh! Prepare to die, sinners!"
The scene, as the Shandian warriors came closer, was soon set. On the very edge of the Vearth of Upper Yard, the ballooning vice leaders of God's Militia bounced up and down, their gloved hands- concealing their Dials- raised in the air.
Opposite them, on the deck of the unknown ship, stood a single blonde woman, looking supremely bored with their performance. "I told you we didn't off him, the killer of your brother is my brother. Who's… somewhere in that direction you came from," she told them, gesturing for the forest behind the two.
"Liar liar!"
"Pants on fire!"
""We're talking about our brother, not yours!""
"…C'mon, this isn't that complicated. Your brother's killer… is over where you came from," she repeated, speaking slowly and carefully to ensure she was understood. "Not here. I don't mind killing you either, but I want you to understand this."
""Who'd believe you? Prepare for your punishment!""
"…Sometimes I wish I got paid for this, just so i could complain about not getting paid enough for this shit."
Sarah Livsey, as it so happened, was all kinds of fed up with these two after less than a minute of conversation. She did pride herself in her ability to draw information out of thin air and talk people around, or at least talk them into making mistakes, but when someone didn't intend to listen to a word she said in the first place…
She wasn't her brother, was all she was saying. If he was here, he could've made these two murder each other just by talking to them, but he was gone gallivanting around with the latest woman to catch his mild, passing interest. And honestly, for all that these idiots were supposed to be relatively strong and dangerous individuals, and the other natives were closing in at the moment as well, Sarah just didn't particularly think either of the two groups worth much alarm.
So when they inevitably attacked, she didn't make much of a fuss about it, instead already swinging her rapier as she knew perfectly well they were deceptively well-armed.
Dial devices incorporated into gloves and boots/well-coordinated/identical twins confused enemies/likely using different Dials each
Right. That. In her opinion, her power was very prone to coming to obvious conclusions, when it wasn't off in wild speculation land coming up with the wildest shit.
""Dial Surprise-!"" They shouted as they closed in, only for Sarah's flexible whip-rapier to snatch up one of their arms, a hearty pull combined with a step back rapidly redirecting it at the other brother. ""Uah!""
Watching on as they accidentally set each other on fire with a short, but violent burst of flame, Sarah nodded. It didn't really matter what Dials they had, exactly, if they just never got to hit her with any of them.
"Damn you!"
"Damn you damn you!"
Not about to let them spout off all day, Sarah pulled her sword back into position, unlatching and reforming it with a flick of her wrist. It was a rapier, but not the extremely slender kind you'd see in a sporting match, nor what you might think of when you heard the word.
Its blade was segmented, with a thick, stable base, only running out into a sharp point near the tip, its double hand guard consisting of both short bars of metal keeping any other weapons from riding along the blade and hitting her as well as a slim, curved piece of steel that bent over her fingers. Mostly designed like that for mechanical reasons, in fact.
As the two meatballs in front of her found out when the blade retracted into itself, Sarah's weapon transforming into a bladed pistol with a quick swirl of its grip. "Just die so I can go back to torturing myself."
With that, she shot them in the face. Except, of course, they started to bounce around, dodging the solid slugs meant to introduce their insides to their outsides.
She knew and expected as much, of course. This Mantra stuff wasn't exactly new to her after her brother had shared what he now knew of it.
"Too slow! Meeeh!"
"You can't hit us! You can't hit us!"
Which was why she took a moment to explain to these particular idiots what was about to happen.
"You know, knowing what's about to happen ahead of time isn't all it's cracked up to be." Measuring the distances involved, she decided she was satisfied with having pushed them a little further away from each other just now. "Combat precog's a bitch, but there's plenty of ways around it."
"You hear that, Kotori?"
"Sounds like a sore loser, Hotori!"
"First resort in cases like this, hit them harder and faster than they can deal with, whether they can react before something happens or not. You. Kill your brother."
Nobody ever expected the good old Mastering in the middle of a fight. So as one of the two turned without thinking, Dial-wielding hand raised to strike at his identical twin, Sarah leapt onto land, ready to tear into whichever of the two she'd reach first.
She refused to sit around waiting for other potential enemies to come up from behind.
So when the Shandians arrived near Upper Yard, moving across the White-White Sea without ships nor boats but rather only using the powers of their Dials, they arrived to the sight of a blonde woman in a bikini dragging two bulbous bodies aboard the strange ship, their white garments enough to identify them as part of God's forces even if it were not for them being recognized on sight.
This did not mean they were any less inclined to fight whoever these strangers were that were taking out their enemies. After all, an enemy of an enemy was just another potential enemy, one that had to be opposed just as bitterly as any other.
They did not know peace, could not until their forebears' spirits had been laid to rest. Until the Light of Shandora was known once more… Even if only one amongst their number knew why it was so important.
However, not everyone shared their warrior's spirit, as they found out moments after they sized up the ship they were planning to attack on the way into Upper Yard.
"Heeey, you guys want to go kill Enel, right?" The blonde woman called out to them, unconcerned by their bared weapons. She was standing at the back of the metal ship, carelessly leaning over the railing as she kept an eye out for them.
"…" Finding himself in the de facto role of their leader, Wyper was the one to speak up in return, his cigarette moving to the corner of his mouth. "…What's it to you?"
"Oh, just letting you know you can go right ahead. I'm sure you can find the right place, you can hardly miss is," the stranger told them dismissively, waving off the warriors of Shandia. "Better hurry it up, else Enel's gonna be dead before you even get there."
"People of the Blue Seas. Do not interfere," Wyper warned, eyes narrowed.
In response, the blonde woman just smirked widely, like a Sky Fox that had just discovered the occupied nest of the Skyfish. "You want to die, be my guest. But I think you have bigger concerns right now."
From afar, straight in the direction of God's Shrine, the seat of the Shandians' sworn enemy, the violent sound of thunder came rolling through their ancestral lands. Lightning was a rare occurrence, up above the White Sea, but they all recognized it easily.
Just as they recognized it was not something that should happen when the clouds were as white as usual.
"Yep," the stranger said, popping the 'p', "better get going before the action's all over."
While Sarah plays the part of the quest NPC telling the natives which way to go, just in case they didn't get it yet and might've scratched the paint job of your ship on the way (in which case you'd have just eliminated them all no questions asked), you are just about to breach the layer of clouds anchored to the beanstalks you've been tracing upwards.
'Just about' being the operative phrase here, seeing as you are perfectly well-aware of the Priest guarding this entire area- the approach to God's Shrine, that is- and who's currently standing at the ready to intercept you.
Case in point, just as you push through the misty barrier of the half-solid clouds up here, carelessly brushing the stuff aside as you go, a clanging, metallic sound echoes around you.
Just as it does, a plethora of hardened clouds shoot out of your surroundings, spear-like as they whistle through the air to skewer yourself and Nico. Naturally, you knew about them ahead of time- again, absorbing the memories of your victims is damn convenient- and simply pull both yourself and your 'passenger' out of the way with a quick tug of telekinesis, both your hands grabbing towards both of you as you move upwards.
And then, in a flash of movement, a piece of sharpened cloud slashes out at you from within the scattered ruins marking this entire area, slicing towards you at blinding speed. Y'know, for a normal person anyways. You, on the other hand, can just swipe it out of the sky, pushing the hardened cloud-stuff aside with the back of your claws without a sweat.
"Ah. More enemies?" Is all Nico asks as you lower her to the ground for a moment.
"Yup. This shouldn't take too long." You can't be entirely sure, seeing as you mostly just got the gist of things from the perspectives of your already dead enemies, and Satori absolutely thought the other Priests were naturally no match for him, despite his occasional blunders, but you're pretty sure all of the four play in more or less the same league, so you aren't really worried here.
The wobbling, hardened cloud you were just attacked with pulls itself back to where it came from, at the same time as that point of origin moves towards you, jumping from one spot to the next. It doesn't take long for it to make itself known- Ohm, the bald Priest of Enel, wearing his signature sunglasses and carrying his now reformed sword over his shoulder.
Yup. That gigantic, overly elaborate pommel looks just as ridiculous to your own eyes as it did through the memories you pilfered from people that met the man. Nice tats, though, he gets a pass on the body art front from you. Not your own standard, but they look okay.
"And so it comes… That suffering is proliferated once more," the man that just showed up out of nowhere (if you hadn't been tracking him already, that is) mourns.
You interrupt him before he can launch into a whole spiel, though. "Yeah, yeah, people fight for happiness only to die so it would be better if they didn't do anything to begin with, we've all read introductory philosophy textbooks," you wave him off. Though in your case, it was admittedly just you getting bored while waiting for that goth-y philosophy major girl you were hanging out with in college to wake up after you fucked her into the usual stupor.
She gave some real good head and also liked that you made coffee for her despite never drinking any yourself, so that particular friendship just kind of developed by itself. Good times.
"Such foolishness… What brings you here, o stranger?"
"Mostly? Archaeology," you shrug, utterly unconcerned at the fact he just tried to murder you. You'll deal with him either way, so you may as well indulge him. "I'll probably murder Enel later if and when he gets in the way, but dem's just the breaks."
"I see. It seems the only way to free you from your future suffering is to slay you, after all."
You sigh. Very loudly, very obnoxiously. "It's not like you were ever going to come to any other conclusion, is it?"
"Holy!" At Ohm's call, an oversized creature rushes through the sparse ruins, skidding to a halt next to him. Sitting down immediately, the thing the Priest called to his side is… A really huge dog, with thick, woolly fur and an expression that well and truly says it's here to run down the clock until its nine-to-five is over for the day.
"Well isn't that just lovely," you comment, briefly worried about having to commit animal cruelty in the immediate future. Like, you'll do it of course, you just don't usually kill dogs.
Ignoring Ohm for a moment, you go ahead and address this new addition to the situation. "Hey there."
"…" The dog, Holy, doesn't respond, instead just staring at you without a single change in its expression. Even the tongue hanging out of its mouth remains motionless.
"Not much of a talker, huh?" You comment, hands in your pockets for a sec. "That's alright, I can talk for both of us. Say, what would it take for you to sit this one out?"
"Hmph. You think to negotiate with Holy? I will have you know I have trained him beyond reproach," Ohm harrumphs.
"…Wruf." 'I'm not paid to negotiate,' the oversized dog informs you quietly.
"I'll be honest with you, I think that way of looking at it is counter-productive," you reply without missing a beat. "If I've got a better offer than your current place in life, you could at least hear it out, no?"
"Whuff," Holy makes, quietly. 'What good is a dog that abandons its master? Or a fighter that won't take a match?'
"Better question," you smile, having gotten the dog to talk already, "what good is either of those things when they're stone cold dead anyways? Is that what the one that trained you would want?"
Are you the one planning to kill Ohm? Yes. Does that matter for this discussion? You refuse to let it.
Ohm was, in a word, troublesome to deal with. Nico Robin was perfectly capable of pinning him down using her power, but where she'd gone for an immediate submission hold to immobilize the man before he could do anything to interrupt what was going on, the well-practiced fighter had turned things around, bending his blade around himself regardless of how little he could move so she'd been forced to let go.
"Ruff."
"I get that, I really do. Life's tough. But you absolutely could do better for yourself."
It did not help that this Priest was using Iron Clouds, shaped like spiky steel wire, all over the environment. Just touching it was dangerous, regardless of whether it was her normal limbs or any additional ones she grew, so having it sprout from below with every potential step she took was… an issue.
"Rfh."
"I'm just saying, I can make some promises. Nothing all that out there, but long as you don't demand too much…"
Gabriel never had told her he could talk to dogs. Or animals in general, maybe? Then again it didn't come up in casual conversation.
"Whuff."
"Honestly, you might as well just join my crew. They get all of that for free just for being around."
Avoiding the swings and stabs coming from the Priest really wasn't made easier by the fact his sword could morph and take on any kind of shape he wished it to, allowing him to strike at her from virtually any range right now. Nico, in return, was trying to pin down his sword arm or disarm him entirely.
Progress was currently questionable, but she'd remain optimistic for now.
"Hruff."
"Food's guaranteed. What we eat differs depending on availability, but I won't let anyone starve on my ship, that's for sure. If you got any dietary requirements to keep up your muscle mass, they'll be provided for. Otherwise, everyone's free to do their own thing as long as they help out when we arrive somewhere new."
"Hmph. Holy will never betray me. I taught him all he knows, trained him into the fighter he is today!"
"Wuff."
"Sure, I can do that. We should discuss this more later, I think you'd have some real potential as an enforcer or something, and I know someone whose power would make you a lot stronger, too. So, we got a deal?"
Holy, the dog (sky dog, technically, Nico thought), raised himself onto his hind legs, reaching out a paw. Gabriel shook it, and that was that.
"Holy!"
Turning around, the huge dog wagged its tongue at its now former master, growling at him as it raised its paws. "Ragh," he barked roughly, ready to fight.
"Damn you!" Swinging his Iron Cloud sword, the Priest tried to strike at Gabriel, who simply watched it approach him for a long moment. Nico debated interfering, to try stopping it before it reached him, but-
Catching the sharp, whip-like cloud with one hand, the Captain of the Dead Sea Pirates held up a finger with the other one. "You know, there's something I've been thinking about," he said, unperturbed by the switch from negotiations to combat. "All the cloud stuff people use with these funky cloud Dials is still made of clouds, right?"
"That's right," Nico agreed, curious where he was going with this.
"I wonder what happens when you forcefully turn them into thunderclouds."
As it turned out, the Iron Cloud used in this particular instance allowed him to send an electric shock of enormous proportions straight through it and into the Priest wielding it as a weapon, instantly electrifying him much like he did his previous victi- targets.
It was also unpleasantly loud, like lightning striking right next to her. Nico might need to invest in earplugs at this rate.
You take a moment to thoroughly fry Ohm, unwilling to drag this entire 'fight' out any longer than necessary. Returning to the topic of animal cruelty, you wouldn't want to draw out the man's death any further than really necessary, what with your tendency to consider sapient beings as livestock and all that.
Still, literal dehumanization tactics employed purely for your personal amusement (not like you'd hesitate to murder an actual person either or anything) aside, you pump a couple bolts of lightning straight through the man you're frying alive. He's… certainly pretty tenacious, simply refusing to die for a few moments longer than most in this position, but in the end the outcome of this one was never really in question.
And just like that, Priest Ohm dies after all, his soul literally sucked out of his body through his sword and straight into yourself. You think you're starting to get used to doing this whole lightning-eating thing you've got going.
Of course, while you're at it, you also grasp the cloudy sword you just used as a conduit to kill its owner, electricity receding from a smoking, burnt body pulling it along where you can grasp at its metallic pommel. It probably works through magnetism, if you had to explain how you do that one without telekinesis or gravity shenanigans, but really, who cares about the specifics at this point?
Grabbing the sword out of the air as it returns to its 'base' form, still making for a greatsword in its own right and all, you nod, satisfied. A good meal, all in all, Ohm tasted surprisingly good. He may have been a deluded killer, but his delusions were good enough to fool even himself into thinking he was doing some actual good.
You're keeping the sword, by the way. You'll have to see whether it works closer to the planet's surface, as you have some doubts about whether all of these cloud shenanigans work at all atmospheric pressures and differing environments, but if it does, it'll be a pretty neat weapon for yourself, what with the lighting stuff you can just instantly empower through this thing.
You probably shouldn't make it a frequent thing though, judging by the violent vibrations you can sense inside your shadow-pockets the moment you actually hold it as a weapon. Yeah, you're pretty positive Last Embrace have gained at least some level of self-awareness, and your weapons really don't like the prospect of you using any other armaments.
Go figure your murder-massacre hyper-armed heavily armored gauntlets would go and be the clingy type, huh?
You lightly toss the cloudy sword's hilt towards Nico, who catches it by growing two extra arms out of one of her shoulders, careful not to hurt herself. "Waff," Holy makes at the sight. 'Holy crap, what's up with that?!'
…Honestly, why's this dog gonna be all confused about someone growing a few arms here and there now? No matter. "Nico, Holy, the two of you go back down for a bit. I'll go fight the big guy so he won't snipe us down while we're busy."
"Are you sure that will be an issue?" Nico asks, moving the sword you just obtained as loot (that therefore officially belongs to you, that's how these things work) to her side.
You, on the other hand, just take a step to the side, neatly repositioning so none of the incoming attack hits her.
It's quite subtle, at first, too subtle for her to have realized, but the ambient brightness in your immediate surroundings has been increasing for a few seconds. Now, as it reaches its first peak, it's rapidly becoming obvious, though, a wide beam of sunlight manifesting, enveloping you in a way that would've given you a serious migraine if you still felt the sapping sting of the sun. "Pretty sure."
Then, for several seconds, the world becomes pure light around you, heat increasing massively as what amounts to an orbital sun laser slams down on your head, physically pushing you down and trying to burn you out.
Without even thinking about it, your armored shell extends over your skin, its protection combining with your aura to shield you from the worst of the blast. Then, when it fails to let up in any reasonable time, you decide to just fucking punch upwards, somehow managing to disperse the attack through a simple application of brute force.
Yup. Getting the hand of this, too, you think. Just how combat works in this dimension.
Standing in a crater drilled into the Island Cloud beneath you, only very slowly filling back in, you turn your armored head, the helmet-like structure of your protective exoskeleton splitting apart to let you open your mouth, the absence of lips revealing your mouthful of teeth and extended tongue.
"There you have it," your voice the exact same as it was before (mostly because you deliberately keep it like that). "You two just get out of dodge for a hot minute."
"Woof!" 'You got it, new-boss!' Holy barks, for once torn from his usual barely expressive office worker expression, looking wide awake instead now. Pushing his head under Nico, he picks her up just like that, carrying her into the opposite direction from you on his skull.
"Just jump off, I'll make you near weightless," you casually call after them as he runs at full tilt. That done, you turn back towards where you know God's shrine to lie. "Now to finish the full-course mea- actually, wasn't there a fourth priest?"
Tapping your armored chin with an equally armored claw, you consider your pilfered memories for a moment.
"Eh, whatever. That one guy probably wouldn't taste good anyways."
You can't prove it, but you think some kinds of people just give you mild indigestion on principle. Gedatsu probably counts among them.
"Nnnh, nnnnnnnh!"
"Gedatsu-sama, you sucked your lip inside your mouth again! Nobody can understand what you're saying!"
"Ah! How careless!"
Crossing his arms to recover from his shock (and missing, grinding his elbows against each other instead, which was good enough for him), Priest Gedatsu was menacing the Shandians, his imperious presence confabulating them all.
"…Are we really gonna fight this guy?"
"Good thing we spread out, I guess. Means not everyone is wasting their time."
"Nuh! There are more of you rats?! I shall have to take them down once I am done with you," the Priest exclaimed, lower arms still grinding as he attempted to pose. "Jet Boots!"
Using the Milky Dials set inside his shoes, Gedatsu flew above the intruders he was set to fight, readying his special attack. That was right- using his Swamp Dials, he could create Swamp Clouds, clouds with the properties of a swamp that nevertheless retained the density of clouds.
As such, they were impossible to remove once they hit someone, slowing them down or drowning them outright. Truly a fearsome- "Gedatsu-sama!" His attendant from the ranks of God's Army called out to him. "You are thinking about your abilities instead of explaining them again!"
"How careless!"
"…So do we just, shoot him or…? I don't want to make Wyper think we're just goofing off here."
"…" Right, he was doing something. Stretching his arms above his head, Gedatsu performed his special attack. "Swamp Cloud Burger!"
Throwing a large mass of Swamp Cloud downwards, he began to bombard the intruders with his specialized clouds. "Crap! My arm!"
"Mh! Mhhh!"
"What are you all even doing?"
Another Shandian entered the scene here, covered in more tattoos than the rest of their kind and carrying what looked a lot like a bazooka on his shoulder.
"Wyper! It's the last Priest, he's oddly annoying to fight!"
The last? Had someone finally taken out the other three parasites? Focusing for a moment, Gedatsu extended his Mantra to check on the rest of Upper Yard-
"How utterly careless!?"
Someone had defeated everyone else! When had that-
So shocked at this turn of events was Gedatsu, he never quite saw the explosive shot fired by Wyper that promptly blew him away coming. It damaged one of his shoes, the Milky Dial inside falling away as he hurtled through the sky.
And that was the last anyone heard of Gedatsu in all of Skypiea, as he was propelled all the way off the island by his remaining Cloudy Dial, his uncontrolled flight turning into uncontrolled descent in short order.
'God's Shrine', as the seat of government is technically called up here in this weird culture they got here up in the Sky Islands, would have looked kind of pretty, once upon a time. A bit like a Japanese Shinto shrine in some ways, with the arches, the overall floor plan, the ambience, those kinds of things.
Right now of course, it's also partially… sunburnt, you almost want to say. There's been no fire or anything, but the structures you see have been warped, deteriorated under intense heat, any color that might've been here once bleached out of existence for the most part. Some chips of paint, equally devoid of coloration now, still stick around, not that it helps this place look any less dead.
A few burnt-out corpses are scattered here and there too, downright mummified, completely dried-out bodies looking a little like some of Crocodile's victims, going through your various memory archives for comparisons. In those cases they aren't just burnt to a crisp completely, more akin to ants under a magnifying glass than anything else, concentrated heat and light doing what they obviously do in that context.
You do not detect any blood signatures in the entire area save for one. Whoever he kept around in this place, Enel, because there's little to no doubt about who the lone living creature in God's Shrine is, has killed them all fairly recently.
The scent isn't too appetizing, a little too laden with ashes and dryness for your taste, but the hints of death you're picking up in the light breeze still get you just a little hungry. If you hadn't been eating already, you'd be tempted to go pick up some takeout right around now.
Walking right on in without missing a beat, you come face to face with the man of the hour. Short blonde hair, kind of a fucky nose, really thick and wide eyebrows, his earlobes are stretched out all the way to his damn nipples, but otherwise… Look, you've seen so many absolute weirdos in this dimension by now, this guy barely makes a blip on your radar, okay? He's wearing a pair of white pants whose legs flare out a bit, upper body pretty much bare.
"Hey there," you say, initiating conversation just for the hell of it at this point. "Gotta say, I like what you did with this place. Saves me the trouble of blowing it up myself later."
"It's you. The complication in all my plans." Contrary to yourself, this Enel guy doesn't seem particularly upbeat. Ah, he probably just had a shitty day at work or something. "How you evade the power of Mantra I do not know, but I will have you know there are consequences to defying the power of God."
"…" You know, you think you're getting an idea about what's going on with this man, now that you're exchanging words in person. "Well, you're just gonna have to enforce those then, I guess," you smirk at him.
For all that you're pretty much taunting him, of course, you don't intend to let Enel over here take the initiative from you. This entire time, he's just been sitting around here, watching, waiting for you to approach his place- not with any particularly concrete plan in mind, mind you, but rather simply because 'this is what God does' as far as he's concerned.
Enel, you see, has a bit of a literal god complex, likely from before he ever became Skypiea's 'god' to begin with. He's got some extremely well-developed Mantra, allowing him to be effectively omniscient within a far larger area than any other practitioners of this particular form of Haki you know of (as in, that Crocodile would have known of, his memories are what you're basing a lot of your judgement on here), combined with his Logia allowing him to largely ignore anyone else's attacks while one-sidedly punishing anyone he took issue with…
Well, it's at least kind of understandable how he would have come to be who he is today, at some point after consuming the Gira Gira no Mi. Not that it'll save him from what's about to happen.
First things first, you punch him. In the face. It's just how to greet a Logia user properly, you're pretty sure. Rushing straight him while he keeps impassively staring you down, not reacting even when your balled fist rams straight into his skull.
Said skull dissipates into motes of shining, yellow sunlight around your fist, the force of your strike not particularly effective in dispersing literal light, sadly. Pulling back a step, you watch as he just reconstitutes himself, unimpressed by your display of aggression.
"Yahaha! Like anyone else, before the power of God you are-"
Then you repeat the same motion once again. With Last Embrace positioned properly, that is, covering the entirety of your lower arm and letting you use its weight to really lay into Enel, a punch slamming squarely into his torso just below his chest.
Where the adamantium covering your weapon hits him as well.
Enel folds around your arm, eyes growing comically wide as he suddenly finds he can't actually just go all blinky cancer-light on this one. For a fraction of a moment, you treat him a little like a condom for your lower arm, wrapping it in his skin, before he flies off, launched backwards by the force of your attack.
One of the now dilapidated buildings making up God's Shrine explodes into dried-out splinters. Nothing to do with yourself, of course. Hardly your fault when Enel goes and decides to launch himself into the place he just finished ruining.
"Turns out it works after all, huh?" You comment, sliding the tips your fingers across Last Embrace. Your weapons purr at the attention they receive, their internal motors and mechanisms running a little hotter than usual. Nigh indistinguishable from their normal state, but you can detect faint vibrations where they rest against your arms. "How fortunate."
Adamantite does negate Logia use after all. Its magic-retardant properties had you wonder, but you've been able to transform your arms into lightning just fine even while wearing Last Embrace, so you also had your doubts.
But yeah, nice how you don't have to rely on Armament Haki for this one. You could've overlaid Crocodile, but this way you can be a lot more flexible, for the time being.
"Hey Enel, you find your missing balls in there or why are you taking so long?"
In response to your obvious provocation, a beam of light the size of a train and many times its speed rams into you, burning up the very clouds you stand on along its path and resolving into the form of Enel himself, gritting his teeth in anger as you deflect his fists in a careless defensive motion.
Looks like this fight is on after all.
Some more mildly destructive testing reveals that, while Enel is kind of screwed now that you've proven you can punch him and make him feel it, he's still a surprisingly tough sonuvabitch, zooming around and bombarding you with plenty of sunbeams while trying to build up enough heat in the area to actually hurt you at some point.
Naturally, your natural, armor-like protection is thwarting most of his straightforward attacks, not to mention the resistance to heat and outright fire you gained after you carved your tattoo into your arm. Screw being inherently weak to fire, by the way- a certain eldritch friend of yours really did you a favor when he helped you retroactively 'correct' a few things about your metaphysical makeup way back when.
Anyways, it looks like Enel has understood, after that first brief exchange, that getting anywhere close to yourself is a bad, bad idea for him, which to his credit is entirely correct. He's taken to swerving around your immediate vicinity once you made it clear you do, in fact, have the speed to react to him even if he's in light form, the man transformed into a literal beam of sunlight firing more beams at you from all directions he can get an angle from.
…If he wasn't such an asshole, he might well be a great attraction to cats, come to think of it. Sunbeam naps on demand and all that.
But your efforts at aggressively ignoring the efforts of the sapient laser pointer aside, you've decided you need a new way to distract him, at least until such a time as that you've got him on the ropes and can just pummel him to death with Last Embrace. Luckily for you, you've got a handy way to mess up someone's day up your sleeves at all times! One of the most useful Umbramancy spells you've figured out so far, in fact.
So as you calmly dodge a few sun-lasers, weathering a few more coming your way as Enel still tries to melt through your shell, you raise an armored hand towards him, palm upwards, clawed fingers spread. "Shadows, rise up!"
And as you close your hand, the shadows do, in fact, rise. Now, this is still Umbramancy, the whole shadow manipulation thing this particular brand of reality manipulation has got going being in full effect- you fully expect that the shadow copy you're conjuring out of Enel's shadow won't last too long, eroded by the bright light the man emits literally every time he tries to murder you.
Thing is, this spell animates the shadow of its target, technically speaking. Normally, this has predictable results- people in the presence of any given amount of light naturally block some of it with their bodies, therefore creating the shadow you need naturally. However, there's just a slight bit of an issue here.
Enel emits light himself. A lot of light. So much so that when nothing happens, for a moment, you almost assume the spell just failed outright, not finding any relative darkness to anchor to.
But then something does change. See, with all this light flashlight boy is throwing around, he's also throwing a whole bunch of shadows, against the ruins of God's Shrine. You wouldn't call them his shadows, exactly, but as it turns out your magic doesn't seem to give a fuck.
Which is how and why a mass of a dozen shadow-beams, looking exactly like his own sunlight beams if they were sucking light in instead of emitting it, come around the corner of the ruins to ram in his face on his next go-round, his body thrown back into solid form as he lands on his ass.
"Guh…" Enel's reaction is to slap the ground with one hand, causing another round of orbital sun beams to come down all around the place, blinding light blooming into explosions of heat. "There's no use hid… ing…"
Now standing opposite from him, emerging from an ablative shell of protective shadow, is his doppelganger, completely black and imitating his earlier, cockier posture. Crossing its arms, this magically animated thing gives him what you can only describe as 'probably a smirk', given how hard it is to see the expression of a literal shadow, globs of shadow rising up from the ground.
It formed fine after all. More importantly… it has a slightly inverted copy of his powers to call on.
Interesting.
The fight kind of devolves from this point on, with Enel and his hostile double just conjuring and splattering massive amounts of sunlight explosions and shadow blasts everywhere, tearing up the surroundings and rearranging the entirety of the landscape, or what remained of it until recently at least.
Detonations are going off every other second, the clouds trembling under the force of the strikes exchanged between them as they dart back and forth, their high speed and destructive abilities making for a massive amount of collateral damage as they go.
Meanwhile, you're sitting on the figurative sideline, having pulled a bucket of sweet popcorn out of your shadow (never leave your dimension without some, you never know when it may come in handy). Man, this is basically, like, some movie levels of an action scene going down.
Not to mention all the screaming. And the shadow clone laughing at Enel to rile him up along the way, too.
Contrary to your initial expectations, the thing's actually doing fairly well, holding up against the whole sunlight shtick much better than you would've assumed. Maintaining its own coherence by throwing up shadow blasts any time Enel tries to nail it with his bursts of light, it even counters his orbital sun lasers through surface-to-orbit surges of darkness in turn, following up on everything he does and even matching his speed when he's in light form, out to punish him for every last opening he gives it.
Even more interestingly, it seems it actually managed to luck into being Enel's specific weakness, its darkness countering his light so he can't just Logia through everything it does. All in all, it's really doing exceptionally well, despite your own misgivings about its effectiveness. Honestly, you would've thought it would serve to tire him out a bit before perishing, not actually keep him busy and fighting with all his might for this long.
Of course that doesn't mean it's about to win. Even with it protecting itself, the overall brightness maintained by Enel's tendency to fill every direction with sunlight lasers is sapping its strength bit by bit, weakening it as the fight drags on. And for all that you don't think Enel really ever faced much in the way of serious opposition he couldn't just sun laser into nonexistence, he's absolutely adapting to this situation, improvising new attacks and hammering this particular weakness as hard as he can.
"Million Lumen Burst! Wrath of Ra!"
Just so.
Eventually, your magical creation runs out of juice, small amounts of it leaking and dissolving in the light out of whatever fractures it has accrued through the numerous impacts of those sweeping light beams; Enel's taken to maintaining longer, hotter versions of those orbital lightshows he's been calling down since before you even faced him properly, letting them slowly move to scour the area bit by bit.
It looks like it's about time for you to actually get off your ass and continue the fight yourself, you suppose. Like, you could just wait for the shadow clone to be dispersed entirely, then summon it right back once the shadow it's made of goes back to Enel, but he's figured out the trick and it's too bright as it is, so that probably isn't the best of ideas.
Then again… You do have some ways to make this entire situation worse for him. So, so much worse.
Holy was a boxer. If he had to describe himself, that was the word he'd use. He was more a boxer than he was a dog, even, though a dog he was still.
There was big philosophical meaning in this. He just did as he was told, was trained by his coach and fought who he was pointed at. Such was the life of a boxing dog. Though maybe calling himself a martial artist fit better; he had no great attachment to the art of boxing as such, it simply was what his style of fighting was founded on.
The coach taught him like that, so that's how he turned out. Simple as that.
It probably was only natural that, like any decently strong fighter, he would eventually be approached by certain societal elements that were less than sky-lily white in how they conducted business. The issue was, Holy wasn't just a dog that happened to be a boxer, he also knew better than to throw away his life.
And in contrast to his coach, he didn't care one whit about that God guy. So when he got an offer he couldn't refuse without signing his own death warrant, it was only obvious what he'd do.
So there he was, harmlessly free-falling all the way into the jungle carrying his new co-worker on his head. "Woof," he said, initiating some inconspicuous small talk to begin a conversation.
Annoyingly, the freaky woman with too many arms to be healthy didn't reply. Maybe she was just the quiet type- Holy was like that himself usually, he was just nervous enough to make an exception right now.
Didn't help how the sounds of battle were echoing from up above them, driving him on to push further and further away from the great doghouse in the sky. Better to be further away than closer when these kinds of things went down, his training, experience and instincts all agreed.
"Wrr-hoof." Even pushing it and mentioning the weather didn't seem to thaw his passenger, though. This woman had to have nerves of steel to remain perfectly calm and quiet in this situation, even her heartbeat and breathing steady as best Holy could hear.
"Oh. Are you trying to talk to me?" She finally acknowledged. "I can't actually talk to animals."
Go figure.
He was going to find something else to do, maybe figure out another way to communicate, probably just explore a bit now that he wasn't bound to remain in his old coach's territory- the Priests were on bad enough terms the others would've attacked him if he'd roamed around in their backyards, annoyingly- but before he could decide what to do, still keeping on the move and all-
The sun turned off, and everything went dark.
Holy looked up. The sky, normally bright lit, was completely without illumination. It wasn't just night- there were no stars, no moon, no nothing.
He looked down again, not wanting to throw off the crazy-arms-woman by accident, despite the no less than six hands holding onto his skull right now.
Then he just sat down. Whatever was going down was officially outside his wheelhouse and he wouldn't deal with it at all. He'd just sit his dog-ass down and wait until someone told him what to do or the world finished ending, whichever came first.
"…We probably shouldn't get separated," his passenger said, sliding off his back and hopping onto the ground. "It's too dark, but I can still see somehow… Better make a fire just in case."
That sounded like a bloody marvelous idea. Holy got up to help her gather wood.
"It's so dark!" "Did someone turn off the sun?!" "What's going on-"
"Did none of you idiots pay attention?" At Sarah's dry, annoyed and utterly, bleach-white calm interruption, the crew stopped moving, torn out of the short-lived panic that has gripped it momentarily. "Gabe told everyone he's doing a thing, didn't he?"
"Yeah, it was just surprising." "Very surprising." "I was so surprised I started shedding hair!" "You're bald to begin with, idiot!"
"Just lean back and enjoy the darkness. You can see just fine, can't you?"
At her brother's request, Sarah and the others were already confirming what exactly this particular phenomenon did, what with the sun being completely gone, darkest night blooming into existence in its absence. For starters, all the thralls could see perfectly despite the darkness, their usual low-light vision, noticeable but hard to call special in itself enhanced far beyond its usual specifications.
As they also soon found out, they were stronger, faster, in pretty much any ways they could measure on the spot. That said, the most important change was (obviously) found in the actual vampires- Sarah was fairly powerful all around, but she didn't really think of herself as being the most physically strong vamp around.
In this unnatural darkness, she could tear the enormous trees of this jungle island they were anchored at out with their roots, fingers cracking living wood and pushing into it for handholds. Her power was on high alert, too- observations and inferences bombarded her brain at top speed, even whatever alien passenger thingy Gabe and Riley liked to theorize about feeling motivated at the moment.
Whatever Sherrel was doing to the ship, it looked pretty impressive, too, and if Taylor wasn't pointedly sitting around keeping watch over the crew, she'd totally be out committing mass murder using unlimited amounts of superpowered bugs or something.
Everything they were felt… more, then and there. Empowered by something beyond their notice, but easily visible in the perfectly black sky.
All over the world, the sun disappeared. The weather calmed, or it grew more intense. The people looked towards the heavens, some confused, some fearful, some curious.
Most were fearful, which to be fair was quite sensible. To see the sun disappear behind a wave of darkness spreading over the world wasn't an everyday occurrence for most of the people alive in this day and age, to say the least.
Everyone and everything that could see the sky took notice, and those that sought to find out the cause of this strange behavior soon set out to find clues about what might have happened and how.
Meanwhile, the root cause of it all was sitting atop a crumbling, sun-worn wall, laughing at how badly he had outmatched his latest opponent.
You know, you kind of expected something to happen when you reached out with your 'real' body, that undifferentiated mass of what might've been a soul once before something happened to turn you into what you are today, but blotting out the sun and repainting the sky in complete darkness was kind of a pleasant surprise on your part.
It's not that you just physically block the celestial body's light from reaching the planet you're on, is the thing. There's no barrier or membrane you put in the way or anything. Nah, you just magically declared that 'it's night, the sun isn't allowed', and because you can shout over the laws of physics that's just how it is now.
As Enel is rapidly finding out right now, what with his powers suddenly deciding not to work.
"What is this!" He demands more than asks, his sunbeams fizzling out instead of growing into disastrous lasers like they did just moments ago.
"Oh, that?" You ask, pointing upwards. "Don't worry, I just decided you were taking too long. So I turned off the sun."
Incomprehension is visible on his face, but that's alright. He doesn't have to be quick on the uptake far as you're concerned or anything. In fact, he doesn't have to do much of anything at all.
"That's not what you should be worried about, though." Pointing at something behind him, you give him your best shit-eating grin. "You can marvel at the power of a real God all you want when you're done dying."
With that, the darkness grabs him with arms that look just like his own. And a madly grinning creature making a mockery of his face pulls itself into his field of view, empowered beyond any conceivable norm by what you just did.
"Take your time. If I'm gonna have lunch up here, I may as well do it right, eh?"
In the end, you have to step in before the shadow you animated, empowered to the point of being just plain stronger than the original, finishes Enel off, but by and large you easily manage the situation and consume the guy just fine. Just goes to show how nicely you can control a situation with even minimal effort these days, you suppose.
So, sorting through Enel's memories… Most of them are entirely unimportant so you just glance over them, seeing as you haven't acquired any voyeuristic tendencies towards your victims so far. Honestly, you don't give a fuck about most of these people's lives, for all that you make it a point to end them by the dozens. Or hundreds. Sometimes billions, but the Flaxans were a bit of a special case.
It's not like you're feeling any great need to go on another planetary genocide of a rampage or anything, but eating all those cross-dimensional aliens was a lot of fun at the time. And you've basically got a lifetime supply of souls lying around now, not that you're eager to let go of those on the few occasions you have to trade or use up any of them either.
Anyways, while you ignore the majority of what was swimming around Enel's largely hollow skull, there are a few tidbits of information of interest in there. Such as, for one, his desire to visit 'Fairy Vearth', the mythological place of origin of his ancestors from what you can tell, based on old stories he was obsessed with.
Turns out 'Vearth' is just what they call 'earth' up here in the clouds- arable soil being kind of important when there's a pretty limited amount of food you can produce otherwise, as plants don't really grow all that well on Island Clouds, or clouds in general for that matter. Anyways, the reasons for the locals' endless fucking issues with each other aside, supposedly this land of plenty where there's more solid ground than you can shake a stick at still exists, and Enel was determined to travel there.
Where was it, you ask? On the fucking moon. Enel was a moon boy all along, or at least he was sure that's where his people in particular came from once upon a time.
And the little lunatic went and built a flying ship to travel there, made out of the gold he had the enslaved Skypieans he 'acquired' after taking over as 'God' strip from the ruins below. The plan was to use himself as a reactor of sorts, emitting tons of sunlight that would have driven the whole thing- he actually designed and built something like that through nothing more than endless trial and error, having no idea exactly what he was doing but just trying shit out until he happened upon the solutions to the problems that came with this endeavor.
As in, he literally spent the last seven years on doing that, only actually getting around to construction sometime around last year. And now he was nearing completion, only to be interrupted by your arrival to his little personal fiefdom.
That he was also planning to burn to the ground as he left, just because he could and felt entitled to it. Did you mention he had a massive god complex, by the way? Because, uh, yeah, that was what was going on with him, psychologically speaking.
Ah well. Now you just have to take the body and- Oh.
Looks like the Shandians finally decided to show the fuck up.
Observing the approach of the blood signatures you immediately connect to the Shandian people whose fight with the other natives around here kind of devolved into a cold war for a little while now (technically a little before Enel took over- the previous 'God' had been trying to negotiate a peace with them that never quite worked out, then he was kind of thrown out when the sunlight goon squad hit up Upper Yard), you note how they move and the way they're using their legs- yeah, they're using Dials to move, of course, literally riding the clouds emitted by the things.
You kind of imagine it to be like skiing, except it goes in more directions than downwards and you're getting fucked extra hard if you manage to slip. Actually, that does sound kinda fun when you put it like that.
Setting the potential uses of cloud-skiing for recreational exercises aside, around two dozen angry sky-natives are currently racing upwards to come meet you, in spite of the completely blank, black sky currently blanketing everything in sight.
At the same time, however, you're also suddenly seeing something else. Off in the distance, further away than the Shandians but also moving faster than them, there's… a winged horse whose fur bears a pink polka dot pattern? Carrying two riders, too, a lanky old man in heavy armor and a little girl wearing a poncho and fur hat- Shandian from the looks of it.
Now what the fuck is going on here, is the big question? Well, you suppose you'll just have to wait a couple seconds- both groups are approaching you at rapid speed from different angles. The girl's gesturing to the old man, who in turn spurs on his winged horse (Seriously, is that normal up here? You never can tell with sky fauna) while the Shandians Sarah told to get a move on earlier stay at a steady ascent.
…You could just up and disappear yourself, but this is looking like it might be interesting. As such, you simply stay right where you are, counting down the seconds to the inevitable confrontation. Three… Two… One…
"Enel!" The Shandians hit up the area around God's Shrine first, bursting onto the scene without even bothering to look first.
You, in turn, casually raise the limp and very dead body in question, the bite you took out of him nearly having removed the left shoulder with the force of your teeth. "You're late for your appointment," you tell them, wiggling it a little. "Next time try coming five minutes too early instead of five minutes too late. Just a suggestion."
Before anyone can say anything further, the flying horse and its passengers make their entrance, said horse spewing flames from its mouth to light a path, as you absently note. Just as it passes above, the two figures riding it jump off, the old man carrying the girl in one arm, and she in turn jumps off just as they reach the ground.
Now, here, she rushes out in front of you and holds out her arms, as if forbidding you from moving a single step towards everyone present. "Y-you can't kill everyone! It's not allowed!"
You look at her. Everyone else looks at her. She looks at you. There are tears in her eyes, the sheer fear invoked just by facing you almost enough to make her have a panic attack.
Delving a little deeper, because hey, she's giving you a great opportunity here, you look at the source of this sheer fear… And you know she knew, listened as it happened, every time you killed someone on this island. It's how those with Mantra tend experience the sensory input, the voices of people they can listen in on.
She's been listening every time you silenced a voice forever, just after it screamed out in primal terror. She listened as you effortlessly wiped out all of Enel's people, just after he wiped out all his little prisoners just in case you came to save them. Through her eyes, you may as well be a literal manifestation of death.
You don't get much more insight than that just by looking into her eyes, but you get the gist of the rest. She probably found and convinced this old man to bring her here so she could try to keep all the grown-ups from her village from being murdered and added to your personal tally- despite just how terrified she is of you.
That old man totally is the previous 'God', by the by, Gan Fall; he looks similar enough to what the priests and Enel remember of him before they kicked him out. Small world, huh? Also, this girl really has some immense talent with Mantra if she could 'hear' everything happening like that- more range than even Enel, considering he didn't know where the Shandians were hiding, and he was both monstrously good with it and used his Fruit to cheat.
You smile.
Looking down at this girl, watery eyes glaring up at you backed up by nothing but sheer, despair-filled determination and refusal to let you massacre your way through more people, you consider your options for a single moment, even as the Shandians finally snap out of it.
"Aisa! Get back!" One of them calls, cigarette falling out of his mouth as he angrily moves to secure the kid. Next to him, a really fat guy (whose hat makes him look kinda slug-like, not gonna lie) tries to help as well, but the girl in question herself resolutely avoids the first guy's hand.
"Stop! He'll k-kill everyone, Wyper!" She cries, still holding her arms outstretched. "N-nobody-"
"Alright, I've decided," you say, putting just enough power into your words to make everyone listen instead of trying to pull anything on your watch. "First off, I just slapped Enel so hard he up and died, which makes me the new God by right of conquest. Any disagreements?"
You're looking right at Gan Fall, his white beard ruffled but now firmly in place, his mount settled down next to hi- why is a giant bird instead now?! When did it even shapeshift, you didn't notice it at all!
But yeah, it's the Shandians- or Wyper, rather, as you now know, that speaks up first. "What do we care who rules the damn Skypieans?" He spits out, only now realizing he lost his cig earlier from the looks of his gaze going down to where it used to hang.
"…That only makes sense, seeing it is you who defeated Enel," Gan Fall finally agrees. Good. See, he's pretty much the highest 'official' authority left among the Skypieans, after you just got done massacring what amounted to their government forces, so getting him on board with your little regime change is an important step. "I would only beg for your reign to be… somewhat merciful towards our people. Please."
And he actually gets on his knees, wizened face completely earnest (if mostly not so much as budging) as he does. He's literally begging you not to just kill everyone for the hell of it, huh?
"That's perfectly fine with me. My first act as God is to institute you as my… Assistant? Public speaker? The person that does all the work anyways?" You vaguely gesture towards the old man. "Anyways, I'm giving you your old job back, minus the title. Keep the people reasonably happy and take care of any issues if and when they pop up."
"…Very well." Standing up, Gan Fall rises to his full height, looking like a weight fell off his shoulders. Even in all that heavy, metal armor he's wearing… That you are, in fact, aware is a sign of great riches up here. Clouds don't really do iron ore, see- most metal even present up in the sky are imported from down below, so having enough of the stuff for a whole-ass suit of armor is impressive in and of itself. "I shall do my utmost to serve the people once more!"
"Feh… Stupid old man…" Wyper mutters.
"Right. You lot," you follow up. "I didn't eat any of you, so I'm not sure what your fucking problem is. You want to get back on the island?"
"We are here to reconquer the home of our ancestors," he declares defiantly, earning a glare from Aisa who's still trying to 'shield' the Shandians from you. "If you think-"
"You're back on the fucking island, pick a spot and live on it," you wave him off, a wave of increased gravity emanating from you. The Shandians, aside from Wyper, are immediately forced onto their knees, not unlike Gan fall earlier, though the head honcho dude amongst them stubbornly tries to remain on his feet. "I can't be arsed to deal with stupid territorial disputes, you assholes come here onto your ancestral lands and figure things out. Go bother Gan Fall if there's any issues."
There, problem solved. Easy. Two hundred years of pointless bloodshed ended through 'careful diplomacy'. What's next on the docket?
"If you would be so kind, lord," a certain former God addresses you, "my men were locked up after Enel became God. Freeing them would surely-"
You see Wyper, who's still looking super pissed, already breathe in to argue (and probably try to undermine Gan Fall so the following fighting he's already anticipating the moment your back is turned is easier for the Shandians), so you interrupt all of that right away. "Yeah, 'bout that," you shrug, "Enel killed all of them the moment I killed the first Priest. Their bodies are thattaway."
Eyes wide, the old man grits his teeth, primal, deep pain in his eyes. "…I see."
Ugh. Yeah, you'll have to figure things out a little more here. For one, you've put Gan Fall more or less back into office, but while the civilian population of Skypiea is likely all up for their former ruler to return and, well, rule over them again in all but name, the Shandians still continue to be pissed about the whole colonization thing that happened around two hundred years ago.
They also have a bunch of fighting men, whereas the Skypieans… have Gan Fall and that's it, right now. Or at least none of the others among them are actual fighters, as far as you know based on Enel's memories. There's some militia types that enforced Enel's law amongst the civilian population, the White Berets, buuut you don't really want to rely on them to keep the peace.
And with Gan fall's own former soldiers being all massacred, he can't really reliably keep order, least of all if you actually make the Shandians live practically next door- those same soldiers were mostly a ceremonial matter while he tried to negotiate peace in his time, but otherwise their job was mostly to defend against the semi-regular Shandian attacks against Upper Yard.
You'll have to figure something out here, a way to enforce some kind of peace that can last long enough it eventually just becomes the status quo… And lets you actually make the Shandians do as you say even after you're gone for longer than an hour or so.
There's a couple ways to accomplish this. Two big ones come to mind, even. Issue is, what you're thinking of requires you to use your actual divine powers- and more of that worship juice you've been slowly accruing than you really have, right now.
You'll have to choose. Prioritize. Man, you hate not being able to just go 'yes' to all options presented…
"Alright, you all come with me," you finally decide, having once more come to the realization that most choices between two options actually are false and you totally can do everything you were thinking of… It'll just take a little bit of doing and some patience to go along with it. Honestly, not the worst issue to have to deal with on your end.
But for now, you just grab the girl- Aisa- with one hand, scooping her up regardless of her instinctively cringing away from your touch. "Ah…!"
"That includes you, yes. You coming, Shandians? Or are you just gonna watch while I abduct her?"
It takes only a little prodding, some gravitational pushing and a spark or two's worth of casual threat display, but at the end of the day you manage to get the Shandian warriors that came to defeat your predecessor to shut up and follow after you, their will to fight slightly stifled by the very clear, very direct demonstration of how easily you can literally crush them under their own weight at a whim. Meanwhile, Gan Fall is just being quiet and does as you tell him just fine on his own, likely trying to avoid pissing you off in case you're anything like Enel was.
As in, liable to 'punish' him by killing the civilians of Skypiea or some shit. Honestly, you don't care exactly why, but as long as he respects the fact you're the big boss now you don't really care why exactly he's complying with your demands, not to mention you're about to cement some decent amount of loyalty on his part anyways.
The place you're taking everyone, of course, is the area Enel had the entirety of the previous iteration of God's Army kept. You don't want to call it a 'kennel' by any means, they still did have simple wooden huts held together by some cloudy crap, but… Yeah, it all looks pretty haphazard. Put together with little to no care.
Gan Fall is the first to realize the meaning of this addition to the very back of God's Shrine, like a pimple on the ass of what used to be the government seat of Skypiea, his previous silence broken as you pass the first scorched, partially cremated skeleton, the ashen corpse all that remains of one of his men. "This is…!"
"Yup. Here's where Enel kept your soldiers," you comment, taking a quick look around. There's, what, a good couple dozen corpses here? Most of them have been reduced to ashes and some bones by Enel's particularly thorough spring cleaning without even a single drop of blood escaping as they burnt up like ants under a magnifying lens on a real sunny day, but you can estimate their numbers based on how many piles of macabre BBQ remains you spot in those huts you pass by.
Not that said huts are particularly intact, but you'd say there's… somewhere in the vicinity of eighty to a hundred people that died here? Roundabout that. Anyways, this is gonna cost you, you barely have the juice for anything of this magnitude as of yet, but you're thinking this whole divinity thing is a lot like capitalism, with Faith taking the role of money.
You have to spend money to make it, at the level you're working at, and so it goes with Faith as well. This, then, is an investment opportunity, and if you have to scrape and scrounge afterwards for a bit, then so be it. Good thing you have that little cult going in a certain very cold, snowed-in place, otherwise you'd be shit outta luck on this one regardless.
"Hey!" You thus shout, intent on getting this whole thing done right away. "Death is no excuse to slack off like this! Get right back to life!"
For a long second, then two, nothing happens, the dark, windless sky stretching around you almost quiet enough to produce imaginary cricket sounds in response to your command. You can feel how the Shandians get ready to try and hit you from behind, if not to defeat you at least to get Aisa of your your clutches for long enough the rest of them can really set up, all the while Gan Fall is caught up in a mix of confusion and the urge to get them to stop and think about what they're doing.
None of that matters in the end, though, as something does, in fact, happen.
It's a rattling sound, like a breath drawn in past shredded lips, into half-torn lungs- not an unfitting description of what's going on, actually. All around you, the ashen bones of the dead twitch, rattle, drawn to where they should lie, even as the actual ash that remains of their flesh begins to fill out the space it once would have, like miniature black clouds bursting into existence throughout the area.
Then, one by one, their flesh returns to where it once was, burned, carbonized bodies returning back to workable condition, all the missing tissue regenerating from nowhere. All the men that died to Enel's casual spite, seeing as they fulfilled their purpose as far as he was concerned, are returned to top condition, not so much as a single scar on any of them.
Finally, they open their eyes, gasping for breath, some of them shouting in surprise at being alive again all of a sudden. Man, being able to just declare someone alive and making it happen (whether you have their soul in your possession or otherwise) sure comes in handy at times like these, huh?
"There you go," you shrug, turning right around to witness the peanut gallery's shocked faces. "Gan Fall, get them situated and recovered. The rest of you, get back to your homes and remember what you saw here today. And remember…"
Still carrying Aisa, you look each and every one of the Shandians straight in the eyes simultaneously, an additional pair of pupils growing in your eyeballs for each of them.
"If I can bring these men back to life, just imagine how much easier I can take yours if you manage to piss me off. So don't. Got it?"
And just like that, you're off, not so much because you have nothing else to say (though that's part of it, gotta let the mook parade digest what happened so far for a bit) and more because…
You're fucking exhausted all of a sudden, and if you didn't have all the supernatural levels of poise and control you have over yourself, you'd be sweating bullets right now, barely standing upright for that matter. It's a feeling you really, really haven't been missing from your time being alive, just saying.
"What about me?" A small voice asks, the presence of Aisa in your arm almost forgotten along the way. Right, you did snatch her up while you were at it.
Making a deliberate effort not to show your severe lack of divinity wracking you with momentary weakness, you smile at the girl asking the important questions. "You're coming with me to my ship. For the moment, anyways. You have a lot of potential, so I'm not about to let you waste it."
"…What if I don't want to?"
"It's the price for stopping me from killing everyone else earlier. You were very brave back there, you know? But by doing it, you caught my attention, which is why I listened to you at all. No good deed goes unpunished and all that."
With the blessing of their God, they could finally survive in a semblance of stability, their shelter providing all the warmth the strange plants sprouting from the altar needed to continue growing, their heavy, luminescent fruits sprouting on long, vine-like stalks.
Before this, there had been plenty of doubts among them, as was only natural. Even driven to the brink like they had been, there was plenty of room for it, particularly once they had established their simple protection against the elements; after the immediate danger had abated and survival was no longer at immediate stake, desperation receded long enough to give way to second guesses, to the time needed to question whether they truly had made contact with a divine entity or merely discovered a strange, magical book of some sort.
Many excuses could be made for what had happened, and made they were as rationalization took place. However, to paraphrase what some of the more determined believers would have said… 'If someone feeds you, you don't doubt 'em.'
To know that their God was out there, lending them the strength they needed, was one thing. To be fed in exchange for devotion, for the blood of their enemies shed in His honor, was another.
It was as undeniable as the cold, self-evident in every bite taken from the fruits they were granted. And the reality of the sacrifice made, too, was difficult to deny; though they had bled out the bodies of the would-be bandits thinking their dome of twisted iron and steel an easy target, none of the blood remained on or near the altar the day after, surely taken as it was meant to be.
The sacred stalks (as some began to call them half-jokingly) could be transplanted elsewhere easily, but despite continually growing back any fruit that was plucked from them once a day, more stalks would not grow even if one planted said fruits in what soil they had. For a time, the fellowship of survivors was determined to make do with what they had, hunting for meat while scavenging for what materials they could find to expand their shelter, or perhaps build additional structures around it.
That was, until a girl slipped away from her mother, because she wanted to go see the black altar again. Many of the children did not like spending time in the room set aside for it, as their parents were always behaving strangely when asked about this place, but she was a brave girl, and she wanted to help her mama.
She also wanted to eat her fill again, like she used to before it got too cold to go outside. Before they'd left the city they used to live in, before all the lunch got smaller every week and her mother always frowned to herself.
And she also was very smart for her age, so she knew this was where the yummy, hand-sized fruits came from all the children ate now. This was where the adults asked the God for help and stuff. So she sneaked in and climbed onto the alt-tar she'd heard them talk about when they didn't think she was there.
The girl hadn't been to church for many many weeks, but she remembered when her mama used to take her, and how she was supposed to pray. So she knelt there and folded her hands, and she asked the God to please make there be more food, because her mother was too thin and she wouldn't eat even if she tried to share the fruits with her.
How long she was there she didn't know, or maybe she forgot to pay attention to the time, but she prayed as hard as she could, because she didn't want her mama to go away. On and on she prayed, her eyes closed, every breath coming out so evenly she barely remembered to swallow every now and then.
Her breath echoed, resounded in the secret chamber that the survivors had kept as untouched as possible, a mix of reverence and shame at what they had done to those bodies calling for such caution, but the next time someone entered, still trying to make sense of some of the text hidden inside the mysterious book, they found her there, praying, imploring. They tried to pull her off the altar immediately, but found it impossible to move the little girl; like a statue chiseled from stone, she was stuck in place, cold to the touch and yet breathing in perfect cycles that slowly drummed away in one's skull if listened to.
Three days and three nights she remained, her mother coming and begging for her only child to return to her arms, but there was no way to pry her loose. She was on the altar now, some of the survivors already fearing she had been taken as a sacrifice, careless, childish play costing them a precious life-
When the girl opened her eyes, smiling widely. The God has listened to her prayers.
Laughing, she turned around, throwing herself into her mother's arms- nearly throwing the poor woman to the ground, after how long it had been since she'd eaten a single bite of anything, if not for lack of food then of worry for her daughter- and repeated the same words again and again, to the point some of the grown-ups were filled with fear instead of relief.
'He Is Here. He Is In Us.'
Coincidentally, the mysterious, sacred text they had brought elsewhere for study in the meantime had appeared on the altar in her stead, lying open on blank black stone. The pages filled themselves in, neat handwriting accompanying detailed schematics, instructions clearly laid out step by step, explaining what to do in as clear and concise a manner as any had ever seen.
'Beginner Hydroponics by Y', was the heading of this manual that was appearing before their very eyes, ink drawing itself across blank pages none had seen in this book before.
They would need space and warmth, only one of which could be found if they expanded their shelter outwards. But what, someone argued as a council was hurriedly called, if instead they expanded down while the expedition towards the frozen ocean nearby gathered the algae they needed?
One thing was for sure, after this incident; none would doubt their God again. Even the children- especially them, with how eagerly a certain rascal of a girl just smart enough to be too smart for her own good told stories of what she'd felt and experienced on that altar- were beginning to find some true, deep Faith growing inside themselves.
As it must be. For only the souls of the Faithful shall be preserved.
"You know, when you said we were going to run a cult, I didn't expect it to involve so much work for me."
"Hahaha, come now, this isn't some scam religion, we provide actual divine services. Not that this level of engineering is beyond you, for all that you claim it is not your specialty."
"…I used to think of ways to end world hunger as a way to pass the time, so I still had most of this stuff lying around somewhere. Still pisses me off we're doing this all in his name, though."
"Now now, you still got to help these people avoid starvation. That is work well done by any metric, is it not?"
"Just saying, they're totally going to devolve into murderous cultists."
"Even if they do, would you have turned your back on them right now?"
"…Go screw yourself, old man."
"Hahaha!"
Your reserves of literal divine power are… Well, pretty fucking dry now- you were honestly a little worried you wouldn't even have enough juice to finish resurrecting all of the people you brought back from the dead earlier. That part worked out, but for the moment you're not gonna be pulling any literally divine bullshit out your ass, not until you've recovered some.
Turns out you only have a very limited influx of the worship you need to just… make things happen like this. How exactly to quantify it and why you need this diffuse, metaphorical type of energy to fuel your godly abilities are issues to take a closer look at later, point is you have only so much you can do and you've exerted yourself about as fully as you can.
By now it feels kind of like some kinda soreness, except it's not inside your body. No, it comes from your greater 'self' you're at best half-aware of even now, that vague, not exactly physically present (nor sensible) construct.
Possibly what happened to whatever passes for your soul and the transformation of which likely is responsible for your spontaneous resurrection, though that's mostly speculation for now. If you're right, though, that means entering your inner world is essentially just pulling your consciousness inside of there, as said 'inner world' kind of has to be seated inside your own soul considering everything in there is literally made out of soul stuff.
It just ended up taking the form of that, well, whole-ass world instead of your self-perception. Or some of it did, at least. The good thing about souls and soul-stuff is that things can work on completely different rules compared to normal physics and still work out just fine, so the specifics almost don't really matter on that end.
Ah well, whatever. You can figure this shit out if and when you manage to get this whole 'eldritch deity' thing under control and rolling properly.
For the moment, your plan is to rest here in Skypiea for a while, seeing as you pretty much took over the entire island and are now planning to just brute force incorporate the Shandians into it and make them say 'please' and 'thank you' along the way. A little bit of personal attention seems like just what this situation needs… And you can use that time to recover some of that divine juice you need to finish things off.
To be honest, you'd feel much more secure about this place if you got things done properly, for which you need to refuel those reserves first and foremost. Also, taking a break sounds good- you don't have to rush things on your journey of maritime larceny and related crimes or anything, after all.
And if you're gonna stay anywhere to take a bit of a vacation, a beach of literal clouds isn't the worst possible option out there. Even if being high up and close to the sun is one of those things the other vampires are gonna be annoyed about.
Then again, it's just another incentive to get sunbathing and ensure they can deal with it better. You know Sarah's been slacking on that end for a while.
In the meantime, you can think of plenty of other ways to keep yourself busy on the side, from working on some of your newer skills, playing around with Last Embrace (who seem to be inching closer and closer to full sapience of late) all the way to improving your new domain.
You may not particularly care about Skypiea, but it's yours now, and you refuse to let it go to shit on principle alone. It's pure egomania that drives this particular standpoint of yours, but honestly, of all the particular habits and obsessive needs you could've picked up so far, making sure your shit's in order and people that you rule over have reasonably amazing living conditions to work with isn't the worst, you'd say.
'Sides, you still are making Gan Fall do most of the work in that regard no matter what. He'll do a fine job playing middle manager, you're pretty sure, at least based on what you picked up on from Enel's espionage of the citizenry. Most of them wanted to have him back after the guy took over… Though nobody dared to say it out loud after the first demonstration of what happens to 'infidels' around these part.
So you going ahead and providing the kind of critical things people would actually appreciate- additional soil, some technology, that kind of stuff- would make a noticeable difference without increasing your own workload in the slightest. The kind of government action you can get behind, in other words.
Communicating all of these thoughts and ideas over your telepathic network (and coming to the conclusions you do with the help of everyone currently in it, you always make it a point to be open to suggestions and all that) takes around five full minutes, after which you still have to go and pick up the two people not in on your telepathy… Who are currently sitting around a fire in the middle of the jungle.
"Ah." Seeing you approach (you don't exactly try to be stealthy or anything), Robin gets up, dusting off her pants. "Are you done, then?"
"Yup, ended up taking over the island and putting the guy in charge that used to run things before Enel," you explain this entire slightly convoluted series of events. "It's all kind of a mess right now, so we're taking a break up here before we sail onwards."
"Wuff." 'Who's the pipsqueak?' Holy asks, similarly getting up. Why exactly he's bipedal you still have no idea, but there's surely some kind of sense behind this giant dog's biology.
"Oh, this is Aisa, she's really good with Observation Haki- or Mantra as they call it up here- so I decided we're taking her along."
"…Hello." Still a little choked up, but she's stopped crying already. You just stepping off the clouds earlier to return back to the jungle floor had her scream out everything she had already, so right now she's probably just too exhausted for much more.
"Now come along to the ship, I have to introduce everyone," you smile, chipper as ever.
This little vacation couldn't have come at a better time! Mostly because it's a vacation. Those can never come at a bad time. At most you wish you had more of 'em.
Now then, the crew is back together, including your new recruits, and the Grand Cruiser is slowly making its way across this cloudy ocean, leisurely cruising along after you successfully employed a measured, careful approach towards conflict resolution in your attempt to do some casual archaeological work.
The Golden Belfry was located atop the beanstalks, much as you had indeed expected after comparing its supposed location with where said oversized plants decided to sprout- you found out as much after a quick trip all the way up there, taking Nico along so she could take a look and all that.
Also up there was a poneglyph, like she'd been hoping, and according to her it told of the location of this ancient weapon thingy; you didn't really pay much attention, in part because you were having a long day already and in part to just demonstrate how little you care about this stuff. Nico seems a slight bit touchy if you're reading her right, so you're going out of your way to ensure she doesn't get any ideas of sneaking out and going back to looking for other random people she can attach herself to while she moves closer towards her goals.
She just gives you that kinda vibe, y'know? Best not to give her any reasons to consider it.
More interestingly, this dude named Roger (kind of a big figure hereabouts, historically speaking) also left a message next to the rest of the poneglyph using the same characters, probably easiest summarized as 'Roger Wuz Here'. If he wasn't dead already, you're sure you would be having a few good laughs at or with him sooner or later.
Anyways, that's about all you got from this whole thing- along with Enel's secret, hidden golden airship of course. You may be interested in taking that thing apart sooner or later, or heck, maybe you'll fly to the moon just to take a look around up there while you're taking your vacation already. Not like you particularly need an atmosphere or anything.
There's also all the gold that Enel had extracted from the ruins to build his ship, figuring it was both reflective enough for his purposes and generally shiny enough to be 'worthy' material for his solar-powered sun-wagon, but then, material goods such as this aren't the greatest thing in the world far as you're concerned. Hazards of cracking matter replication years ago and just being able to literally print as much valuable crap as you could ever possibly want and then some, you suppose.
Ah well, that's all thoughts for later. Right now, you're just sitting back while your ship carries everyone over to the more hospitable beaches of Skypiea rather than straight to the jungle filling out its west, whereupon you fully intend to finally chill out a bit. Honestly, you've been having fun, but most of your stay in this dimension has been lying around in your cabin preserving as much time as possible- important, but you're looking forward to being more… consistently active now, you suppose.
But before that, you still do have some aftercare to provide. It's very important to do that for most women, y'know?
"So, had fun?" You ask Nico as you take a seat next to her on the Grand Cruiser's railing she's currently leaning on.
"I suppose I had," she replies, trying not to show her reaction, but you can tell she's holding back a smile. Or maybe some hysterical giggling. Same difference. "Wasn't expecting things to escalate into conquering the island, though."
"Eh, these things just happen sometimes," you shrug, waving her off a little. "Guess we'll be hanging around a week or two, until the situation around here has stabilized, before we keep going."
"Most pirates would take an opportunity like this and rule over whatever islands they could conquer. You don't?"
"What would I even do, navel gaze all day? Nah, I'm just fine setting up a more or less functioning government and maybe coming back if we need or want to down the line. Actual ruling over people takes way too much."
As you make pleasant conversation, a minor bit of drama plays out on deck, where the girl you decided to keep is running away from a couple of the crewmates you keep around for minion purposes. "Go away, you poopy doodooheads!"
"Hey, I'm not poopy! The capt'n would beat up anyone that doesn't wipe on his ship!" "I think she just hates us." "Gahaha, that's the normal reaction to a bunch of pirates!"
Sighing, you reach out, a tug of telekinesis and gravity manipulation gently pulling the girl off her feet and towards you. "See? I can barely be arsed to keep order among the crew, I'm not about to do the same on a whole island for a full-time job."
Aisa keeps entirely still as soon as your unseen grasp makes itself known, and even more still when you promptly grab her out of the air to settle her on your lap. Her eyes, though, you can see moving rapidly to look for some opportunity to flee, despite her facing away.
"Indeed. Speaking of- why did you want to take her in, then? Aisa seems… like the opposite of what you'd want to deal with."
"What, this brat?" You chuckle, patting the little leather hat the girl in question is wearing. She pouts and crosses her arms, but still refuses to talk to you. "Don't worry, I've dealt with much worse. And as for why I took her, well, there's a couple reasons."
"Hmm… A hostage to make the Shandians obey you?" Nico guesses, one hand on her chin.
"In part, yeah," you shrug. "Makes it a tad easier to establish some kind of peaceful order around here without me having to wipe them all out while I'm at it."
The girl on your lap shifts uncomfortably, but she does seem resigned to her role in the grand scheme of things.
"Additionally… The people up here have this thing called 'Mantra'. Better known as Observation Haki on the Blue Seas, but I actually like Mantra better as a name." A flash of recognition comes across Nico's face. "That's right, some are just born with incredible talent for it, maybe as an adaptation to living in the clouds somehow. Point is, Enel was one such guy, he actually taught those Priests of his how to do it… And Aisa here is leagues better with it than he was."
Her neck snaps around at look at you, seemingly not believing your words but unwilling to let them stand. Her arms are still crossed, too, though she likely forgot they were- Aisa fumbles for a moment to get them back in order as she turns sideways. Cute.
"What, did you never think it strange how nobody else just knew something happened when you just did? Or how none of the other kids were bothered by the things that bothered you?"
Half guesswork, half having Sarah take a look at her earlier, fully usable to drive your point home. You just love it when you can just point out the obvious and be all smug about it.
"Your range was actually greater than Enel's, and he used his Devil Fruit to boost his. That's why he never attacked your village, y'know?"
"…I'm not like him," Aisa complains, defiantly looking up at you.
"Of course not. I just said you're better than he was," you point out with a sly grin.
"Is that the second reason then?" Nico inquires. "Her Mantra being particularly good?"
"Pretty much," you shrug. "Figured it'd be a waste if she didn't get to use it, so I'm planning to teach her how to fight for the time being."
"I don't wanna fight."
"Right, the hyper-empathy," you nod. "You feel extremely bad when you 'hear' people being hurt or dying, right?"
Aisa doesn't reply, but you can tell her stubbornness is only partially overcome by her surprise. You'd bet your dinner dessert nobody ever really understood why she shied away from conflict so much, despite the whole village being taught to be fighters from a young age to someday take back their ancestral home and all that crap.
Why she didn't want to fight despite everyone else wanting to. Probably led to at least some alienation too, though at least the adults were properly responsible and stuff from what you saw of them. They did immediately try to rescue her when she put herself in the line of fire, after all.
"That's actually just a byproduct of how strong your Mantra is. You'll get over it in time," you promise her.
The whole thing, far as you see it, is basically like a child not liking carrots or some equivalent vegetable, just taken to the extreme and putting them into her mouth being not particularly voluntary on her part. And, like any childish dislike like that, she can get over it just fine… You'll just have to figure out a way to gently get her used to it.
"People die all the time all over the world, it's just that nobody really makes a big deal out of it," you continue, patting Aisa's little hat a couple times. "It sucks you experience those kinds of things so closely, but plenty of people that develop Mantra don't really mind. And neither should you, really. It's downright unfair you have to feel awful over things you didn't do, wouldn't you say?"
Never mind how you fully intend to make her kill people herself down the line. Eventually. Just to prove she's overcome her trauma and issues and all that. Then again, desensitization will probably take a bit just to get to that point anyways, so the timetable probably works out alright.
Before we proceed, good news! You get some stuff!
Specifically, we have hit another Metotoken milestone in the number of likes this quest has, giving you another one of the big boy (or girl, whichever's your jam) tokens, collectively. Additionally, you've fulfilled a Hidden Quest, which is totally a thing now and not just me forgetting to make this official ahead of time!
His Throne In Heaven: Considering some recent theological advancements made, the ruler of Skypiea being titled God instead of king or something similar is way too much of a coincidence to go unremarked. Conquer the Sky Island of Skypiea and put yourself into your rightful place by any means necessary.
Reward: 30 BP
BP now at 225
Lastly, while you haven't been exerting yourself too much, you have been fighting a couple people recently, so your Viltrumite Tonic has continued to grow.
Viltrumite Tonic Effects: +46 to all physical rolls changes to +48 to all physical rolls
On the way to your temporary vacation home, you finally decide you've got all the time and opportunity you need to sit down and figure out this whole 'Haki' thing a little. You've eaten a bunch of people that were capable of it, so it's not like you're lacking perspectives and experiences to emulate as you work out the kinks standing between you and practical usage of the whole thing as a skill.
After a brief analysis of it on your own terms, including what you know about how Aisa just possessed it from birth much like Enel did? It's surprisingly similar to Aura, in principle if not in practice. The two methodologies do very different things- and Haki seems a lot more flexible in its application, whereas Aura is arguably more immediately powerful considering how much protection it offers- but both utilize the user's soul to do their thing.
If you had to describe the fundamental difference here, you'd say that Aura as practiced on Remnant is the act of manifesting your soul around you as a protective shield, sustained more by your very existence while still being influenced by your willpower, whereas Haki is using your soul as a catalyst to do stuff with your willpower as such.
Both require both aspects to function, they're just very differently weighted and all. Someone without a soul can't use Haki and someone whose willpower is entirely exhausted or broken just loses the protection of their aura, for example. Still, while Haki is a little… unwieldy, you suppose, in that you actively have to focus on using it, it has a lot of pretty interesting applications.
Armament Haki is gonna be interesting if you can actually stack it on top of all your other tricks (and Last Embrace will hopefully like it, if you can somehow apply it to them as well), but for the moment you have a lot more examples of Observation Haki- or Mantra, rather- to work with, and it's just as much on your docket, for that matter.
Having super-senses is one of those superpowers that seems kind of underwhelming until you really think about it, but they're surprisingly handy both in a fight and in daily life. Not to mention you know those Priests developed their own Mantra to the point of effective combat precog, much as it didn't help against you, and you want some of that.
There's no bullshit like precog bullshit just effortlessly outplaying you because someone already knows what you're gonna do and acts accordingly. Well, aside from your own brand of even more utter bullshit, but that's a whole different story to begin with.
So you sit down and try to copy what methods of developing Mantra you learned of from the Priests you ate- Enel never had to learn it, being born with the ability, and Crocodile just kind of picked up on Haki as he went, so they're unimportant for this step. You just have to reach into yourself and pull-
"CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN PLEASE STOP!"
Ugh. Everyone's a critic. "What'd I do this time?"
Well, picking up half the crew after they spontaneously got paralyzed as a direct consequence of your mild experiments as to this new method of externalization of your soul- you won't apologize by the way, some sacrifices must be made in the name of progress- takes a hot minute, but before long you've got the whole Haki thing on lock… You think.
It's probably because of how closely related it is to Aura, which you've done a lot of work with, but you're finding it surprisingly comfortable to set up a simple instance of Mantra. You can't exactly do the whole 'predict what someone does before they do it' thing quite yet, but you're able to get a read of your surroundings separately from your blood-sense and your enhanced senses in general.
Before, you could generally make out people's positions and actions well enough just by paying attention to their blood flow, the speed of which was a pretty decent indicator of plenty of things in itself. Now, you have a considerably wider area you can just monitor for anyone's emotions in, giving you a vague sense of how they're doing to boot. Honestly, for how much of a beginner you are at using this ability, it's actually really not bad in the Thinker department.
And yes, this application of Haki is absolutely a Thinker ability far as you're concerned. The good thing about the PRT's threat classifications is that you can use them pretty much universally, for as generalized and imprecise as they can be. And how much the system falls apart when faced with anyone actually powerful. And- look, it's not perfect, but it works well enough when you consider particular powers in isolation, okay?
Pretty much what the classifications were designed for anyways. Most parahumans don't exactly have 'fuck you I do what I want' amounts of different powers to begin with and those are the people the PRT usually has to deal with anyways.
In other news, you're also somehow able to paralyze people in a large area by exerting your Haki just a little too much. In fact, you end up using this phenomenon as a benchmark for whether you're using Mantra just right or wasting too much of your strength of will while attempting to activate it as you get the whole thing down.
The crew gets knocked out repeatedly, to the point some of them end up developing minimal resistance to your will-pressure (at least that's what you think is happening, Crocodile had no idea about this either as best you can tell) at some point. Like, they still faint, but it takes them around a second longer on average by the time you're satisfied you can do this thing reliably.
You hate not being able to use your powers reliably. It really sticks in your craw. Hence why you had the Grand Cruiser stop halfway to Angel Beach, as Skypiea's 'main' beach is called (it's just pretty close to the island's actual city and the one coastal area most equipped for tourist-y stuff, it turns out), to get in some practice.
Again, you will not apologize. If the crew wanted to not get repeatedly subjected to your Haki, they could've gone and swam ahead any time they wanted. Or they could've asked you to levitate them out of range like you did the vamps, Nico, Holy and Aisa, for that matter.
Anyways, here you finally are. "Guess I should go at least show my face to the people considering I took over the government and all, huh?"
"Good idea." Sarah, being her usual self and clinging to your side now that she's allowed to stay close again (you had to bodily push her away when you started to blast your Haki around earlier), pouts up at you. "Even though you should be in your room instead."
'With me' goes unsaid, but you hear her loud and clear. Sighing, you pat your sister's head, golden, shining hair smoother than silk at your touch. She leans into your hand, of course, sniffing for your scent and you're absolutely certain that, unless stopped, she's about to glomp onto you to try and drag you off to fuck like bunnies for an hour or two.
Really, such a handful sometimes… "We'll have plenty of time for some fun later, so let's get public relations taken care of first," you promise, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.
"…Fine," Sarah pouts, crossing her arms and looking away. Just like Aisa, funnily enough.
Resisting the urge to poke and squeeze her cheeks is the hardest part of this whole day, honestly.
MyThule uses a token to give you Haki xp, followed by a token to mark Haki as a favored skill, halving all Skill Rank costs both retroactively and up to Rank 10! That is, we're applying the latter first, just to make the math a little easier to go through real quick. It's the same end result either way.
Haki 3 (2245/3000)- Haki 3 (3995/1500), then gains 10000xp, now at (13995/1500)
Now ranking up to Haki 8 (1495/4000)
Now excuse me for a sec while I figure out the five fucking perks you can get just from ranking up so far
The people of Skypiea, as in, the natives of the big main island that makes up the one big landmass (as well as cloudmass, for that matter) up here in this permanent, slowly moving cumulonimbus cloud construct, your new subjects and responsibility (that you fully intend to delegate to someone that gives a shit, because you don't particularly do so) are… kinda weird, is your first impression.
It's not the little wings people have up here for some reason. Like, you'd absolutely love to investigate a little closer as to how and why they developed them and all, because biologically speaking it's pretty crazy to see, but you've seen way weirder in this dimension alone, never mind in others. Neither is it the way the locals developed a ton of technology based on the Dials they have up here, to the point they specifically breed the things to use their shells for their unique characteristics and borderline insane ability to absorb and emit both energy and matter.
Which, for the record, is still pretty crazy and you're definitely taking some samples at some point. Just saying.
Nor is it the whole thing with the clouds- they actually mine solid clouds in what looks a lot like quarries, then process the stuff in cloud factories and stuff. It's actually kinda cool, in fact.
Is it the way they interact with each other (as well as yourself)? It's probably that, if you're being honest.
"Heso!" Standing at attention, a bunch of men in white outfits 'salute' you by holding one hand to the backs of their own heads, two fingers sticking up. "The White Berets greet the new God!"
Yup. To sum up what's happening right now, you disembarked earlier to take a look around and demonstrate how you absolutely give zero fucks about the Skypieans, which may sound bad considering you technically rule over them now but actually is a vast improvement over your immediate predecessor.
Who made it a point to toy with them, randomly execute anyone that wasn't kissing his ass sufficiently whenever talking about him and force the people to pretty much take part in his regime of terror and snitch on both each other and any tourists or immigrants on pain of, again, orbital sunlight laser obliteration. Among other things, you aren't even gonna go into the slave labor he got from Gan Fall's boys and all that crap.
So people didn't particularly like Enel and what he was doing, is what you're saying, and your intention not to really interfere with their daily life for the most part should reassure the Skypieans. Aside from Gatekeeper Amazon, anyways, the shriveled old prune that let you up through Heaven's Gate. You're pretty sure the old woman just gives zero actual shits about what she's even doing.
So anyways, one thing led to another while Gan Fall organized everything and had some of his subordinates spread the word and, well, here you are in the middle of the town square, being weirdly saluted by the weird White Berets. Basically the local militia slash law enforcement that, until now, enforced Enel's laws on the island. Mostly so he wouldn't do it himself or send his priests or his little mini-army to do it instead, as you understand it.
"Hello to you too," you drawl, resigned to making this whole thing a whole-ass dog and pony show after all. "In case it hasn't been noted yet, all previous bullshit Enel did is hereby to be undone. Basically, just revert everything to how it was under Gan Fall, then we'll all work on going from there, I suppose. Any questions?"
"Sir, no sir!" They bellow out in response.
Which is good. You have no interest in actually ruling this place, but a few mooks to have Gan-
"You heard the new God! The White Berets are hereby disbanded, as they did not exist at the time of God Gan Fall!"
"Pheeew… Man, that's a weight off my back."
"Yeah, it's great we don't have to do this anymore."
Never mind you suppose. Meh, not like you particularly care all that much at the end of the day. Now you just have to-
"Hey Gabe, we got the locals to spill the beans about the most delicious food 'round here, so Taylor's off to gather some of these Sky Lobsters," Kate interrupts you as she approaches, pointing a thumb towards the beach where you can see Sarah and Sherrel lounging on deckchairs made of cut clouds. "You coming to the cookout or lording it over the peasants?"
A couple dozen Skypieans are already gathering nearby, carrying what looks like portable grills and a couple Dials as they chat with your crew.
"You know damn well I'm not about to miss this," you smile, joining her in wandering straight towards Angel Beach.
Look, you gotta have priorities, okay? And a beach cookout goes over government work in your book. 'Sides, you can introduce yourself to the people much easier and more casually in this kind of setting, so it's basically two birds with one stone. Three, really, considering you fully intend to use this opportunity to find out more about the culinary culture 'round here.
You may not be a cook by any measure, but having more recipes to draw on for when you want to mess around and make something nice is always better, y'know?
It is now day (or whatever passes for 'a new period of approximately 24 hours has begun in what happened to our timetable by now)
415 days since rising from the grave
17 days left in this dimension
Note to self, figure out how to make Sky Lobster farming sustainable. Sadly, the things live in the shallows of some cloud islands and can't survive closer to the planetary surface for extended periods of time, so their habitats have to be up in the sky. They also need access to the White White Sea (as opposed to the White Sea, which is the cloudy ocean one floor down just in case the terminology needs any repeating) to both hunt for sustenance and mates, swimming through the clouds by waggling their legs really fast.
They're also pretty tasty, more so than normal lobsters even. Taylor's been making them procreate in significant numbers purely for the purpose of consumption, but you want to design some kind of system that doesn't require her interference and attention. You ain't sticking around forever, but whenever you come back you want to eat these things, dammit.
You know, maybe it's an overreaction on your part to try the local delicacies of Skypiea and immediately launch an investigation into how to farm the things they're made of- primarily the Sky Lobster, on account of those things being much harder to keep it captivity than, say, some of the hard-shelled fruit that basically act much like coconuts, except the juice inside of them is both exceedingly, fruitily juicy and refreshing, with a small amount of natural carbonation making it basically sky-nature's soft drink of sorts.
Then again, nobody can tell you not to do just that, and by simply eating a handful of the lobsters Taylor sourced for you alive so you could absorb their tasteless little animal souls (they just barely qualify for having souls at all, you're pretty sure) you've acquired pretty much all the information you need for this endeavor of yours.
They're deposited inside the mirror hall of environments like all of their less-sapient kind you deign to consume, but interestingly enough the liminal space of a laboratory you have inside the central 'main' ruin of your inner world has some databases of information on just about anything that enters your stomach, or maybe the library just records a bunch of information the lab goes on to draw from it or something. Same difference to you in the end anyways.
Of course having skipped the part with the environmental studies and the concerns about biodiversity doesn't mean you're about to put in all the hard work on the nitty gritty parts of the task you're eyeing right now- designing a reasonably reliable and sustainable way to 'farm' these lobsters, that is.
Instead you're doing the obvious and making Yoshi do it instead, forcing your convenient science-dispenser to come up with thoughts and ideas in your stead. It's not like you couldn't do it, you just prefer to delegate even basic tasks sometimes, and right now is one of those times.
"Look, at the rate this is going, we're either going to need an entire enclosed ecosystem to make this work or else just… domesticate the things somehow," your premier science-ing soul grouses, his young Japanese face twisted in annoyance as he rubs his eyes. "Can we just do that? That giant crustacean carried the ship on demand, didn't it?"
"Not a bad thought, actually," you reply, leaning over in the sleek, futuristic chair thingy you've been sitting in for the past hour or so while you watched Yoshi trying to figure out how to accommodate the biological needs of the Common Sky Lobster inside a controlled environment, growing increasingly frustrated all the while because the things are actually kind of a pain to manage.
Then, you pick up a certain Sky Lobster you smuggled into the Lab itself earlier, holding up for him to inspect as it gobbles a large crumb of bread, which you've found this specimen likes to consume while that was all going on.
"Say hello to Lobbster, our new prospective mascot. I've been treating it like a pet and it seems to have accepted that I provide food and protection, so I think you're on to something here."
At the rate Yoshi's rubbing his eyes now, he might well accidentally poke one of them straight out. Or worsen the stress migraine you've been slowly driving him into, anyways. "I hate you. I know you know that, but I really, really want to say it out loud."
"Aww, love you too, buddy," you grin, waggling Lobbster the Lobster at him. Hm. Thought. "Think we could make a lobster-based children's TV show of some kind, actually? Figure the kids would eat it up and I want to stay ahead of the propaganda game in the dimensions I'm involved in larger organizational stuff."
"Please please don't ask me. In fact, forget all about that entire line of thought," he shudders. "I don't even want to know how something like that would turn out coming from you."
You just chuckle, poking the top of Lobbster's carapace as the shiny-shelled lobster explores the top of the table you're lounging around at. Now you're gonna have to decide between dropping the random idea you had and keeping it up your sleeve just to pull it out at some point purely to fuck with Yoshi, won't you…?
Thoughts & Suggestions for To-Do-List:
Mess with Yoshi Done Assert Authority Arguably done? More lobsters (Lobbster the Lobster) Ensure Skypieans and Shandians stop squabbling with weapons involved Add more soil to Skypiea (raise depopulated islands?) Make undead to leave behind (Maybe?) (still thinking it over) Gather Faith (Use Skypieans? Doubtful, their culture doesn't really jive with religion) Create representative to leave behind (needs Faith) Wait while Faith is generated (make Wales officially responsible for cult management?) Obtain Dials for further testing Delegate everything to Gan Fall Cloud Beach Vacation! Does the World Government care about what happens up here?
The beach cookout thing went pretty well, with lots of food and drink being shared as you essentially led a spontaneous celebration of Enel being gone that slowly escalated from the beach to the rest of the island; as you might've gone into already, the man wasn't exactly popular amongst the citizens, so this much is pretty much a given once you made it clear to the people you very much intend not to act like him.
Say about yourself what you want, but your style of godliness is very much unlike his- the sheer waste of simply executing people on the spot for not praising you in any sentence that involves your name is reason enough for you to violently object to the notion. Like, look, you don't really care if individuals criticize you, if anything you want criticism so you can take the feedback for what it is and potentially improve things if anything, see?
Overall you're just a lot more relaxed and casual about your monopoly of overwhelming power and position as a literal God. That you also intend to mostly let the Skypieans govern themselves probably also helps; a lot of them were quite happy to see Gan Fall return to society after he basically went into exile previously, the old man barely managed to escape the well-wishes during the party.
Oh, another point that might've helped to push along acceptance of your takeover is all of the food you made and had handed out. Taylor did her usual thing and sourced quite a lot of Sky Lobsters to supply you, see. There weren't enough to literally feed everyone with nothing but them, especially as you kept some for your later plans regarding turning them into livestock not unlike how chickens might be kept (just, y'know, with lots of access to clouds for them to swim in), but everyone got a decent share of lobster.
Incidentally, the Common Sky Lobster is far from the only kind of lobster around. Taylor actually found the reason they're technically called the Common Sky Lobster, in fact- there's some subspecies, you think they'd count as considering they can procreate with each other, whose carapaces look a lot like gemstones, shining and resplendent in their own right.
Extremely rare. Also quite beautiful to look at. The Skypieans consider them signs of good luck, though they don't pay much attention to the shells as such. You of course will make sure they breed the things to hopefully result in plenty of them being produced by your proposed lobster farms.
Ruby Sky Lobsters and Sapphire Sky Lobsters are the most common, followed by Emerald Sky Lobsters and the very difficult to find Quartz Sky Lobsters. Honestly, you kind of want a collection of the things at this point.
But setting aside your secret plans of lobster-themed merchandise (Lobbster-themed, a corner of the back of your head chimes in) or something down the line, for now you have some work to do. Gan Fall is more or less recovered after a few hours of sleep, having excused himself from the party along the way, and now you've taking him along on the way to the Shandian settlement.
You were planning to make a representative of theirs come to you, but the man went out of his way to ask that you take him to them instead, so yeah, here you are. Floating along the clouds on your ship, staring up at the sky currently roiling with more clouds, covering the sun a good bit. The crew and everyone else is still back near Angel Beach, all the while you're taking care of the whole 'diplomacy' bit.
Because apparently demonstrating absolute power isn't enough for some people to shut up, bow their heads and say 'yes daddy, please and thank you' to your every demand. Man, what a pain, right? And now Sarah decided that you can't just go do things the hard way with the Shandians because of Aisa (with Kate and Nico's support, for that matter), so you're actually going to put some mild effort into dealing with their whole… issue.
Considering they're the kinds of people that refuse to just do what you say even when faced with you demonstrating the capacity to wipe them out to the last man, woman and child, you're getting the feeling this'll be more effort than you'd really like to spend. Then again, may as well use your time productively somehow while you wait for your Faith reserves to refill, yeah?
"We should be there soon," Gan Fall says, bereft of his usual suit of iron armor; he decided it didn't really matter anymore now that Enel's gone, so he left it before you embarked. "I only implore you to be… patient with them."
"Far as I'm concerned, how all of this will turn out is a given," you shrug, not particularly caring either way. "The only question is how much talking or how many beatings it'll take to browbeat them into not making any trouble the moment they're unsupervised. You want to try convincing them first, go ahead."
"Much obliged," he nods, stroking his stately beard. "I feel it is one of the things I failed to do when I…"
You roll your eyes. "When you had the job I'm kicking over to you despite it being mine, I'm not not about to lash out about it or anything."
"Well, yes. When I was God, making peace with the Shandia was the one thing I truly wanted," Gan Fall agrees. "I never succeeded, as neither side of this conflict can back off, but I hope that now we can put the differences that kept us warring endlessly aside."
"And the pumpkin juice you packed is going to help you with that?" You question him.
"I hope so. I quite like it, you see?"
You shrug. Hey, it's his choice how to do this.
Meeting the people of Shandia is… interesting. Their village, for what it's worth, mostly contains tents the like of which North-American natives would have raised- nothing you see is strictly permanent, ready to be taken down and moved away at any time. Aside, maybe, from the odd spiral totem pole thingy, but that one can probably just be remade elsewhere if need be.
In short, you're looking at a 'settlement' that's meant to be moved as and when necessary, likely designed that way due to the long and bloody history between the Shandia and Skypiea. Before Enel, they were basically constantly at war and, contrary to their opponents, not necessarily bound to any one location at a time, after they lost their home, and while Enel was around they kept ready to move anytime the guy decided to get off his ass and murder them all just for fun.
It wouldn't exactly have helped, but it's the strategy they would've followed until moments before they were all burnt-out husks. It's what they knew all their lives.
A group gathers quickly as the Grand Cruiser approaches. It is dispersed just as quickly when a few of the men you saw up near God's Shrine come as well, though the less warlike population (as in, the ones too old and too young, mostly, along with a few women that don't look like they'd be much use in a fight either way) does stay around, just hidden in tents and behind nearby structures.
You jump off the Grand Cruiser in short order once you're close enough to solid the cloud the village stands upon, soon followed by Gan Fall who you're levitating behind yourself. Meeting you head-on is… Well, Wyper, because who else, along with two of his little meathead friends, the rest of the tribe's actual fighters (and it is a tribe, pretty literally, so you're gonna call it what it is) standing in the background.
It's cute how they probably think that means anything, too. It probably would for some people, but to be honest when you're just personally strong enough, the strength of numbers eventually just kind of pales compared to yourself, y'know?
Mathematically speaking, if you can reliably and sustainably kill your enemies faster than they can replace their fallen within effective range against you, you could be in the middle of an infinite number of said enemies and just keep on killing them faster than they can be a danger to yourself. It's pretty simple when you think about it like that.
But enough about abstract representations of your dream breakfast, you have some diplomancin' to do.
"Why are you here," Wyper complains, each word packed with unwillingness to so much as look at you.
Right. This guy's kind of a cunt. And not the good kind, nor even the casual Aussie kind where you can just call someone a cunt.
"Alright, let me make sure we're all starting off on the right foot here," you begin, holding up a hand to make him just… stop. Stop being himself, that is, no matter how hard that apparently is when your resting bitch face is just the tip of the iceberg that is your personality. "Look, Gan Fall brought some-"
You don't bother to continue speaking when Wyper, in a display of impressively lacking self-preservation instinct, rushes straight at you, his trusty bazooka thrust out. Figuring you may as well let him try his luck if it helps establish where everyone stands, you watch impassively as he launches himself forwards using these skater-like shoes equipped with Dials- normally used to create clouds while propelling the user forwards.
He tries to slam them against your chest, feet forward while aiming the bazooka. The moment they touch you, you notice how similar they feel to that cage Crocodile had in his basement. There totally is Seastone in those things. Turns out Wyper wasn't entirely suicidal when he tried to fight Enel… And now he's recycling his ace in the hole against you, it seems.
The bazooka fires a flaming cannonball straight at your face. It, naturally, bounces straight off, the heat dispersing across your front barely enough to feel pleasant after you went and tattooed yourself with the essence of a literal hell dragon and went largely immune to all but the hottest of fires.
Reaching for a leg, you pull Wyper straight off yourself, taking hold of his neck with one hand. "The hard way it is," you say, telekinetically pulling one of the kegs Gan Fall brought along off your ship's deck and poking out a thumb to pierce a hole straight into it with a crackling sound. "Drink your fucking pumpkin juice and sit. Your ass. Down."
Does it count as waterboarding when you're just physically forcing someone to drink something?
As it turns out, the pumpkin juice is pretty effective after all. Or maybe it's you handling Wyper like a child while patiently explaining how things are going to be working from now on to the rest of the tribe. Either way your point gets across, you're pretty sure; they can come on the island and live on it as long as they don't start any trouble.
Any trouble happens, you go and ask Gan Fall for more pumpkin juice. No trouble, no juice forcefeeding. Simple enough, right?
Not everyone likes to hear it, but it is what it is now. You won't go around killing all these people as long as they don't give you reason to, same as anyone else on or near Skypiea, and they're free to settle on firm soil (as opposed to firm clouds) much as the Skypieans are.
Honestly, it's a pretty good deal for these guys, all in all. Sure, they don't get to kick out the Skypieans or anything, but really, that was never gonna happen at this point. They're pretty much reliant on the island's ability to grow vegetation on it to feed their population, so making them move off would basically be what the modern world might describe as genocide.
Suffice it to say that they would absolutely fight that, they'd probably even resist you if you tried to make it happen. Not that you have any interest in doing so in the first place, but yeah. In the end, all you really need to do to tie things up nicely was to ask the Shandians whether their ancestors were the kind to kill civilians, women and children, to get their way.
Because again, that was pretty much what these two sides were trying to do to each other before Gan Fall pursued an end to the whole 'centuries of war' thing. Honestly, it feels kind of weird to try and talk people out of committing war crimes for a change, instead of into it.
But you're pretty sure that's all of that, then. Another successful day in your book.
"…Pumpkins," Wyper said, wiping at some of the juice that had spilled over himself. It was very likely going to dry up and make him smell for days.
"Pumpkins," Gan Fall agreed. "I told you I like them."
Sighing, the Shandian warrior squeezed at the cigarette that had fallen when he'd been… briefly apprehended earlier. It, too, was sodden now.
"For the past few years, growing them was… all I could really do. I tried to help whom I could, but when I wasn't patrolling, I was gardening," the elderly ex-God explained. "I have… had, a cabin on a small piece of Vearth that broke off at some point, far enough to avoid trouble, so I planted some seeds."
Giving the cigarette up as a bad job, Wyper still didn't look at the man sitting next to him, but neither did he interrupt.
"In the end, it is almost funny. How little any of it meant," he mused, stroking his beard. "You, me, Enel… In the end we were all defeated by someone that cared little for who lives where. For what it is worth, I am glad the Shandians made it through everything that happened."
"Shut up old man." Obligingly, Gan Fall did so, falling quiet next to the Shandian. "I still hate you, you know?"
It was a perfectly fair observation. The hatred between their people had been going on for many, many years. Generations. To ask otherwise would be asking for too much.
"But I guess I hate you a little less than him," Wyper continued, a thumb pointing towards the new God.
It still felt strange, to know he, Gabriel, could punish the man for saying this… And simply chose not to, uncaring about the statement. Though in Gan Fall's opinion, this attitude did feel far more worthy of the station of God. "I shall take what I can get," he replied, happy enough with the outcome of things not to care about Wyper's words himself.
Indeed. After a long night, a new sun was rising above Skypiea, and with any luck, some time and lots of work, it may just be better than what had come before.
Before Enel, that was. It already was a vast improvement compared to his time so far. The resurrection of his men alone would have been enough for Gan Fall to swear his loyalty.
By the time you're back from your 'diplomatic' mission to the Shandia, whose move onto the island itself has been planned in rough outlines (you're making Gan Fall deal with any of the specifics if and when they pop up once things get moving, of course), it's already nearly lunchtime, so you take a quick break to eat something before you keep going.
It's always interesting to make new culinary experiences, for all that you're hardly a professional food critic, either. Still you could get used to the foodstuff around here, all in all, if not for the fact you're only sticking around until you're done preparing this place to work out properly.
Look, you're not really invested in it, but you'd be seriously bothered if Skypiea went to shit due to shit governance now that you asserted your own status as its de facto ruler. Ugh. Yeah, you have some standards here, you'll admit to it.
It's nowhere near the grand societal experimentation you have going on all over Earth Rapture, but something inside you demands a minimum level of standard of living, sustainability and self-determination be upheld when you're in power like this, in that order. It's just what you personally think is best- let people decide things for themselves, but only once someone actually competent with the skills, knowledge and position to ensure the first two has ensured they're taken care of.
But enough about your radical ideas about perfect, eternal, undead overlords reigning over the masses in perpetuity, you still have some work to do on your newest little project- Aisa still is far from the merciless, clairvoyant killer you believe she can be if she just applies herself, but you believe you've got the first steps rolling to let her develop past the awkward little shell people call 'empathy' in time.
Only, she's nowhere to be seen when you're done eating, so you take a brief moment to scroll through all currently telepathically available information for a moment to figure that one out. Where you ultimately find her, then, has you somewhere between facepalming and giving a respectful nod despite yourself.
Turns out Kate went and did your job for you, taking Aisa out on a boat and doing some target practice way off the coastline of Angel Beach, having a few of the crew set up targets and all while she teaches the girl how to shoot a gun. How she got her to agree and actually go for it, a look of utmost concentration on her face (one eye closed, tip of her tongue poking from her lips, all that good stuff), you have no idea, but she's already showing just how well she can hit targets way beyond the range of, like, ninety percent of shooters using her Mantra to get an accurate idea of the area she's aiming at.
…The crew's members running around being all excited probably does help her here, what with being able to more or less triangulate positions based on them- Mantra, as you know, has a somewhat easier time reading people than it does inanimate objects, as a rule of thumb- but still, her accuracy's pretty amazing.
Which leaves you unable to really jump in, because you absolutely know how things would turn out if you did. Counter-productively, that is. Ah well, whatever. You'll just go chat with Holy or something in the meantime. No, you aren't pouting about being left out of this, why would you ever even think that?
The cold was growing ever colder, the snowfall ever thicker, the very sky choking up thick, heavy clouds that hung lower by the day. Food was getting scarcer to find, what few remnants of civilization still existed in the area scavenged for anything useful or edible for too long to retain any supplies of either sort already.
To stay warm and fed was becoming more and more difficult, in other words, as the temperature continued to plummet, the sun hid away as though to spare itself the view of the world dying below it gaze and nature itself withered away before one's eyes.
Inside a particular shelter, built by otherworldly means and populated by the half-believing and the incredulous, realization thawing them out of their states as their hands worked the work they needed done regardless, conclusions were drawn like lines, positions taken and defined against one another.
The survivors were split, by and large, between those that saw the path they were on, aware of the precipice they had reached and unwilling to take the next step, hurtling themselves into whatever came next… And those that knew just as well, perfectly willing to take that same step.
Division, of course, was the last thing anyone needed, particularly with the Storm approaching, threatening to freeze the Shelter from the inside out if they failed to keep their enclosed environment warm, making it impossible to gather food from outside when they were not yet self-sufficient with the hydroponics they had built in the hurry to make something of the nigh lightless environment they had created with their own hands.
However, survival remained top priority all the same, so arguments were quickly silenced.
"So what if it's unnatural? Look outside!" Outside, of course, was a snowy wasteland of death. In fact, it was less than a wasteland, it was some kind of hell. Impossible to describe it otherwise. "Nature's turned its back to us, we gotta do the same or die!"
"I don't see 'true' faith giving us food springing from bare rock, so if this is blasphemy? Fuck it, like we had any bibles left we didn't burn for warmth on the way here anyway, right? New religion it is."
"Think about what we leave for our children? The world's fucked, we have to do this to survive. We're leaving them whatever it takes for them to survive, too."
Like so. Dissent was not stamped out so much as it was pushed back, ridiculed at times to ensure it stayed where it was meant to be- out of view. Anyone was free to doubt or disagree, but when it came time to act? When they gathered in the mornings, or what passed for them inside the Shelter, and shed their blood before the altar?
Everyone did it. No exceptions.
Similarly, when some of the survivors began to, let's say sleep around a little freer than they would ever have before, nobody said much about it, at least in what public spaces there were; privacy was at a premium as it was, with the little space they had inside the metal shell keeping them from the elements.
It had been built with speed and thickness in mind, without the time to ensure there was plenty of space for all families remaining among them. Not that it would have factored into it- more space was harder to keep warm, after all.
So things became somewhat awkward when it turned out more refugees were still around, fighting through the snow with all they had, stragglers of the painful, urgent march to the site upon which a generator had been supposed to stand.
The… eccentricities developed based upon certain instructions received from a potentially eldritch or satanic text set aside for a moment, there simply wasn't enough space for everyone to live in as it was, if adding these newcomers. To argue for turning them away, while heartless, was something that had to be brought up, if only to establish the possibility should they find no other solution.
Some clamored to draw on their newly crystallizing faith, to seek guidance from their holy book, but then an obvious solution was brought up instead before such could be done. After all, if there wasn't enough space, just make more, right?
…Metal was scarce, but they built additions to the Shelter, praying and singing a wordless song in tune with one another as they shaped and reshaped it. The soil was hard, either made of solid stone or frozen so fiercely it may as well be stone itself, but stone, no matter how cold, was brought low by pickaxe and determination, and digging down allowed for even easier heat retention, the very earth itself insulating them through its sheer mass.
Things that could be moved began to be moved downwards, and if a chamber or two illuminated by an oil lamp or two was dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh, it was wordlessly accepted after it was found that certain plants tended to grow out of its corners rather well, more stalks added to their precious collection of food sources by the day.
If any newcomers took issue, they were told to just go along with things a bit for the benefits of warmth and food. It didn't usually tame more than that. Of course, that lasted only until a few particularly pious individuals, still stuck in the old faith, refused.
By this point the survivors were pretty clear, though. Deal with the New Faith or go. Their tenets would not be forced upon others, but neither would they accept anyone trying to undo the only pillar they all clung to.
Things became a little heated, arguments about the children and their future went out of hand and before anyone knew it, the people they'd ended up throwing out came back armed, along with equally armed gentlemen from a nearby city that had been keeping itself above the snow line by barring up the ruins of an old village a few days' march from the Shelter.
When the Faithful saw this, they were enraged. So much so that two dozen of their own, men and women both, strode from their airlock gate naked, carrying only instruments of violence and unbothered by the snow.
They say faith's gonna keep a man going, but it can't feed him. It ain't gonna keep him warm, in the winter. Now, they were out to prove that this was only true for the old faith. The lies told before they'd found the True Faith in the depths of the cataclysmic winter seeking to choke out humanity.
There were no survivors among the attackers. Anyone taken alive was dragged into the dark of the Shelter, down beneath the earth, thrown onto blank, dark stone and torn to pieces.
What the fuck are these guys doing, you're trying to gather Faith and here they are asking for a big hand, making them strong like Thralls and immune to the cold… Like, you're still running a surplus here thanks to the human sacrifice, but c'mon, they could be a little more efficient here, y'know?
Alright, you're done pouting and trying to teach a dog how to Haki (Holy is a surprisingly astute student, but, well, it's not exactly easy to figure out how to take your soul and make it do things in physical reality- he doesn't exactly have your advantages starting out on doing so, so it's taking a bit to get anywhere) and using your own Haki to punch things really hard; Crocodile could do this too, but it's actually mostly just using it to coat your body or weapons and make them way, way harder than they would be otherwise.
Kind of like Aura, which may be why you picked up on it pretty quickly after spending a lot of time and effort on playing around with the theoretical limits of what that particular method of externalizing your soul can do. Not that you've found any kind of real limits, mind you, you just got to a point that was 'good enough' for you for the moment.
One of the many advantages of knowing you'll live for a pretty long time; you can drop these kinds of long-term projects and pick them back up pretty much whenever. You don't know how you'd manage anything at all otherwise, sometimes.
But enough about you punching clouds to see how big of a fountain you can make with your bare hands, you've got some other work to do as well, now that Kate's pulling her big sis routine on Aisa already- something to deal with later, you suppose. For now, you'd best get a move on.
Simply put, the exact specifics of trying to get the Skypieans (and Shandians, for that matter) to generate Faith for you like the good little sheep they better be by the time you're done with them still are, admittedly, a bit up in the air, but you may as well attempt to pull this one off… If nothing else, it might be a useful way to experiment with what, exactly, constitutes Faith and how to best influence cultures and societies to get a steady supply of it out of them.
Like, you have a general understanding here, but there's always some stuff you can try out to get a better understanding, best practices to get figured out for future expansions and improvements to these kinds of cults, that kind of thing. You can't help it, if there's a way to make something work better there's really no reason not to fiddle around and see what happens, right?
So, simple plan for a start. Step one, provide ample amounts of food. People that need to eat food usually attach a great amount of importance to it, and rightly so, so that's probably a good thing to begin with. Step two, make the populace associate you with the food you ensure they're provided with, therefore naturally allowing thankfulness to be directed your way.
If it works as you think, based on… previous experience? That should probably count, at least to some extent. If not, it's something to cross off your list of things to try.
Question is, how do you undertake step two? To this, too, you have a great answer. The exact government structure of Skypiea is a little inconsistent, historically, simply because the office of God allows the guy in charge to make changes on a whim, but the job of Priest (or Priestess, for that matter) generally is something most of them kept around, giving it to close subordinates, more or less reliable friends and slash or orally proficient asskissers as their reign went.
Personally, you do have your own plans for what you'll have your Priestesses (because let's be honest, you have an easier time with women as opposed to men, and the former are more pleasant to be around in general anyways) do, of course. Specifically, you're thinking of using them as what amounts to cultural ambassadors and faith spreading people.
You'd just call them missionaries, but you feel like that would be inherently misunderstood just by virtue of you being the one saying it. Like, c'mon, missionary? Totally a position you'd take over someone, eh, eh?
But seriously, you don't mind people assuming you fuck everyone, but why encourage it when you aren't actively doing so? That just feels like entirely too much effort and potential for misunderstandings for your taste.
Some people thrive in unnecessary drama, but you're certainly not one of them. Just sayin'.
So it comes that you end up sitting in a room up in the city, waiting for the two candidates for this project- if it goes well, you may hire on more, you're just starting small and seeing how it goes.
When the door opens, it does so admitting in both candidates at once, the two women simultaneously trying to enter. Of course the doorway is too small for both of them at once, leading to what you can only call an instantaneous traffic jam.
One woman from among the Shandia makes up half of this tangle, anxiously looking around inside the room you're currently chilling out in. "Where's Aisa? I was told I could come meet her!" Her name's Lakis, a tribe member that often took care of your newest crew member, hence her concerns.
"Uff!" Adds Conis, a young Skypiean woman who's currently alternating between being shoved and shoving back at Lakis' chest. "I heard someone wanted something?"
She was randomly picked from a list of inhabitants you had filtered for age and gender, so she mostly just won the lottery. That and she doesn't really have much else to do as it is, mostly just playing harp and taking care of her pet Sky Fox. That realization may or may not have made you feel some kinship right there, considering how needy Sarah can be sometimes.
"Greetings," you begin regardless of the little situation they're having over there right now. "There's a little job I have for the two of you, so I had you called in. Aisa's out on the beach right now, we can go see her in a bit. For now just listen."
Time to see about having a more subversive influence on your newest batches of test subjects. Your subjects you test things on. Such a lovely term.
It is now night
You know, without the sun it's actually kind of pleasant up here. The thinner air only really adds to the atmosphere in the dark, really. Cloud cover's too thick to see the stars, but the moon shines bright enough for its glow to make it through, giving the sky an almost otherworldly aura.
You would know, considering you're technically not from this world and all. Heh. But anyways, things went reasonably well with your newly appointed Priestesses, despite Lakis being all kinds of passive-aggressive throughout the meeting; taking her to go see Aisa afterwards was fun in itself, just because of how she immediately cottoned on to the fact Kate kind of went and started stealing her job as the girl's big sis.
So the two ended up almost shooting at each other a couple of times until Aisa went up and deescalated the situation, but now she has to practice handling a rifle with both of them. Lakis pretended to be genuinely hurt about her never asking about it before, so she had little choice once the crocodile tears came out.
Well, you call it that, but the Shandian really just acted all sad. You get the feeling the culture is very different here compared to what you're used to, so she didn't even think about trying to 'deceive' Aisa by pretending to actually try.
Not that the Skypieans are any less… different, you suppose, they're just different differently. There's a reason you're delegating dealing with actual governance to a native Skypiean that understands how they think.
She's still very much a work in progress, but you totally can see Aisa improving already. Having received one of the musket-style rifles you stole from the Marines and kept around in case they might come in handy, she's carrying it on her back now, ensuring it's close at all times, her posture a lot less withdrawn than it was just a day or two ago.
Not that she's exactly happy about where she is at the moment, but at least she's not looking like a wary cat about to scratch anyone that comes too close. Now she's just a grumpy cat that'll scratch anyone that comes too close, which, really, is basically a completely normal cat when you think about it.
You need to give cats space, they'll feel attacked if you just suddenly close in on them. Give them time to get used to your presence first if they're not used to humans. Or similar, for that matter, you're pretty sure no reasonable definition of the word 'human' really includes you anymore.
Humans die when their heads are cut off and stuff, right? Your head just proceeds to grow the rest of your body if it ever goes missing, you think. You've actually been meaning to try controlling your own severed body parts to keep on fighting just in case someone ever manages to overcome your stupid speed, durability and sheer brute strength, but everyone's telling you you aren't allowed to dismember yourself for practice purposes.
Except Taylor, but apparently her opinion doesn't count? According to Sarah, anyways.
Still, Aisa is basically a kitten you've adopted, don't let her appearance fool you. She may look like a Shandia, with the dark skin, dark brown hair hidden under the veil framing her face as it hangs from her hat and the simple, roughly woven poncho-dress thingy she wears.
There's probably a name for this particular article of clothing, but you'll be damned if you can think of it right now. Not important enough to dig through the archive of stolen memory and hivemind of the souls you ate, either, so screw it.
Scowling up at you, again like a cat trying to assert itself, the girl in question crosses her arms, her little musket rubbing softly against her back- you can hear it actually, funnily enough. "What?"
"Oh, I was just thinking about something," you smile, waving her off. Noting how her eyes follow your hand as you do, that is. Feeling a little mischievous, you stretch that same hand a little further than usual, making her actively turn her head-
So she can't see the other hand coming up from the side until it's too late. And so you shall do the only thing one may do when presented with an undefended target.
You pat.
"Guh!" Surprised, Aisa shakes herself as she falls straight on her butt, both arms held over her head to protect against further head pats. "I'm dying!"
"Not quite, though you might give yourself a heart attack at this rate," you chuckle.
Yup. She's got potential and it's fun messing with her. Almost like having a second Taylor, just a little less latently psychopathic. Her biggest flaw, really, though you're sure Aisa will overcome it in time.
Quickly performing another instance of Aisa-napping (she's just the right size to be picked up and carried off, no matter how much she may protest along the way) while you have her there already, you don't waste much time in introducing her to your own little training area, a spot somewhere between Angel Beach and the nearby jungle; the Skypieans don't come here on account of the untamed undergrowth and the danger of the native fauna (not to mention not being allowed to be anywhere near the area during Enel's reign), whereas the local fauna itself…
Well, you may or may not have gone and flash-fried any living beings unfortunate enough to be nearby when you first looked for a nice place to train with Haki, so most of the surprisingly intelligent animals of the island know better than to come this way themselves. And all it took was you running a few bolts of lightning through all of them nearby at the time.
The purpose of this next exercise, for you that is, is to continue working on your own use of Haki, the Armament kind, that is. You're still convinced you should be able to use it similarly to how you can theoretically use Aura, not only reinforcing yourself or your weapons with it but also actively imbuing your attacks, extending the… soul-based technique, you suppose you could call it, along with it and possibly pushing it into your target.
To preferably destructive effects, but you're still at the stage of practicing the technique's basics as it is. This stuff ain't easy, y'know?
Aisa, on the other hand, is here to use her own Mantra on you while you do this, her spiritual senses hopefully picking up on how your Armament Haki works. She's kind of a savant for Mantra, after all, so you're hoping she'll manage this as a sort of shortcut for unlocking it herself.
And if not, you can always just treat this as a way to properly sharpen her Mantra itself. Gotta teach her early on how to identify things to improve and make an effort to actually improve them, after all.
So you sit her down on a fallen tree, conveniently placed right on the edge of the ocean-facing clearing you've taken over, and instruct her to do what she can. "Make sure to look closely, alright? The Priests could use their Mantra to predict what people do, so I'm sure you'll be able to do it easily yourself."
Gotta make her focus on being better than the dead losers, after all. Having something to measure yourself against is good for motivation.
"Whatever," she begins in response, only to completely freeze up when you take off your shirt, getting ready for your own practice. "W-what's, what're you doing!"
Tilting your head, you give her a puzzled look while tossing it off to the side, confused what the issue is this time. You really can't think of why she'd complain. "Getting ready, what else?"
"You can't!"
"Can't what?"
"That!"
Pointing at you, Aisa indicates… nothing in particular? Taking a moment to stretch before the exercise (just to get yourself in the mood, not like you can pull a muscle anymore or anything), you shrug, letting your tanned skin breathe freely in the fresh air of the sky-jungle. "I don't really get what you mean."
"You! You!" The poor girl's blushing now, probably highly embarrassed over her sheer inability to express herself. It's alright, you don't really mind or anything. "What would your girlfriend say!"
"…You'll have to be a bit more specific there," you request after a moment of thought, scratching your chin. "Which one?"
Aisa's mouth opens and closes like a fish's as she tries to verbalize something you can't quite understand she takes issue with. Then, after a few moments of her cheeks growing an increasingly darker red despite how tanned it is, she seemingly comes to a decision. "The blonde one! Sarah!"
"Ah, you mean my sister."
"Huh? I could've sworn-"
"Who is also my girlfriend," you nod.
Now blushing all over her face, Aisa makes a sound reminiscent of a boiling tea kettle.
"Then there's the other girls of course. Kate, Sherrel and Taylor all could be called my girlfriends, I suppose, even though our respective relationships are pretty different when you think about it," you think aloud. "We all have a lot of sex though, so that's kind of a common theme there."
"Your! Clothes! You can't just be like this!"
"Huh?" You look down at yourself, then back at Aisa who's gone back to pointing at you now. "I'm wearing pants, aren't I? Or is this some cultural thing? Do you want me to take them off?"
In the end, it takes a bit to make her focus on her training, but you wrangle her just fine despite the difficulties. Threatening to put her on your lap has her maintain her blush, but she does as you ask when you do, so that's progress right there.
Even if you have to point out that the entire point of this exercise is to let her see more of people using her mantra, so holding her hands over her eyes is counterproductive. One step at a time, you suppose.
You know, in terms of the qualities researchers and scientists would usually rate these kinds of things, you're pretty sure your Gravity Control is somewhere on the spectrum of a Level 5. And yes, it deserves to be capitalized, because all things told it really is just that insane when you take a moment to think about it.
So far you've been kind of treating it as your ace in the hole, the reason you just genuinely haven't been too worried about anyone stronger than yourself showing up and wrecking your handsome ass. At the end of the day, few people can really focus on fighting you when you're going around making their own body collapse inside out by redirecting their own gravity and that of anything nearby, from the weight of the air to the planet you're on if you need to.
Or making the air stop providing them with oxygen. Or dropping a supermassive rock on them you just lifted with the power of your mind. Or just drown them by taking a giant chunk of water and slamming it down on them from any direction you want, for that matter.
Simply put, you have pointedly avoided using your Esper ability both because it would make fighting so easy you'd literally just instantly win any fight imaginable unless someone has a specific ability to counter you- some Logias would reasonably do that, you suppose, or someone with ridiculously powerful Haki might be able to just reinforce their own body's durability enough to keep you from killing them through your usual methods- and because you want to keep this particular power secret just long enough to surprise the first guy that actually presents a mild challenge to you.
Y'know, the usual gambit with your handy array of powers and methods of general destruction. Keeping particular abilities hidden until such a time that you can pull them out and win in a situation that involves someone that actually prepared counters for what they know you can do is a pretty effective way to take those kinds of opponents out with way less trouble than you'd have otherwise.
But even taking aside its uses in the field of murdering anyone that looks at you wrong, your Gravity Control boasts both considerable precision and immense range. Enough of both, in fact, that you can theoretically use it to make entire landmasses lift themselves, or at least pin chunks of earth together so they don't just fall apart when you then lift them up.
Theoretically and practically too, as you are now proving. The island of Texa Texa (you still shudder to even think the name) isn't too far from where you rose up to the White Sea, and now that you're back down for a moment it'll be closer than ever very shortly. It actually takes a considerable amount of focus to make this whole thing work- you ended up dividing the island into several pieces that you can affect independently just to ensure it doesn't crumble away as you go, purely for the sake of convenience on your part- but bit by bit, you're transplanting the entire island into the sky.
Because hey, you know what? The sky's your turf now, so you decided it should have more islands. And you know from personal experience nobody's using this particular island right now. So you just took the Grand Cruiser in the middle of the night, sailed it down a bit (holding it aloft using your power as well, just because you can) and went right to work.
It's dark enough at night nobody can really see you easily, too, or at least you think you're getting away with your ridiculousness well enough. You're even managing to keep the island's surface more or less intact, including the mutant cows the Texa Texans kept for their milk and meat- lobsters and beef are to become the new staple around Skypiea if you have anything to say about it.
There's a possibility of the semi-bipedal cows growing a few sizes, like some of the fauna and flora on Skypiea did compared to what you think it should be. If so, that means lots of extra beef. With a bit of work the sky might actually export foodstuff at this rate, huh?
Ah well, once you're done with this you'll just pop over to Robber Island and steal that one, too. That should suffice to stifle your greed for literally everything of even vague worth you can find including shit that's nailed down. And the very ground it's on. And, well, entire islands while you're at it.
…Kate mentioned it before at some point, but could it be you do have a hoarding problem after all…?
It was an interesting process, the way bounties were assigned. One might think that, given the plethora of pirates and other assorted criminal scum the Marines dealt with on a daily basis, an impartial, detached office force would be collecting reports of their misdeeds would be the best method to ensure that all such evildoers would be considered with the appropriate, impartially determined bounty by the law itself.
Such daydreams had nothing to do with the reality of how these things worked, of course. The Marines in charge of issuing and paying out bounties were, very much, influenced by their superiors' personal opinions on many things, just as well as their own- the recent… unfortunate circumstances surrounding what many now called the 'Coffee Riot' proved as much.
Still more difficult to manage was just how little information the office had to work off of at times, as indeed not every act of villainy was known to the Marines as a whole. Or at all. Despite their tireless efforts, many evildoers around the world successfully hid their actions- at least for a time, that was.
For in the end, the long arm of the law always reached out for any that defied it. Each and every one of them shall be brought low by the might of the Heroes of the World Government- for this was the meaning of Absolute Justice!
One of the most gossiped-about aspects of their work, of course, were the bounties they published, one of the many ways the Marines pursued their justice. Not a day went by without one being posted, of course, lawless crooks and worse being as numerous as they were, arising from the populace like disgusting pimples, but some bounties certainly were more high-profile than others.
Ignoring those issued for lesser offences, if still grievous enough to require being apprehended dead or alive (the 'alive only' kind of bounty was so rare as to be more legend than real, if you listened to any of the Marines talk about them), the biggest topic of conversation always were the highest bounties. Particularly the newer ones, issued in response to some new atrocity committed by one of these deplorable criminals entirely unwanted in society.
Normally, the amounts of Berry paid out for their bounties followed a given pattern. Anyone considered a certain 'level', of sorts, of danger to society was assigned a base amount, added to for any public menacing they might have committed; should a pirate captain be known to be relatively strong, but largely withdrawn, they were usually assigned a lower bounty than one slightly weaker that was more active, being left for the Marines themselves to deal with but still having a price on their head should any aspiring bounty hunters see an opportunity to act.
Then there were the high-profile criminals. The worst of the worst. Those flouting the World Government and its rules, fighting the Marines, transgressing against the social order. The latest and worst of which was none other than-
"But really, he is damn handsome," one of the men in charge of these things said idly. "Are we sure this is really how he looks?"
His colleague, just about to shush the man just in case anyone overheard him doing the one thing they weren't allowed to do just in case talk made the rounds into the wrong ears, hesitated. "Do you think we should have an artist's impression made and replace the picture?"
"…Nah, the real one's already circulated, it's a bit too late for that." Not to mention the counter-productivity of supplying a less accurate bounty poster, only making it harder to apprehend the pirate in question.
"Guess we should've thought of that before some of the higher-ups decided he was a 'threat to all single men'."
"Who'd have known things would turn out this way? Now we have a pissy Celestial Dragon breathing down our neck and-"
"And what, Marine?" Both of the men froze solid like icicles as their superior officer entered the room, looking utterly unamused.
""And Nothing, Sir"" Both of them immediately saluted, standing at attention.
"And see to it it stays nothing," the man grunted, turning around. "You should know better than to gossip like this."
"…" They stayed silent and at attention until he left. "Think we can tack on another charge for the Dead Sea Pirates?"
"I'll see if I can't find anything applicable."
Getting any significant amount of landmass moved several kilometers upwards (part of you wants to use miles instead, but that part gets shoved aside whenever you have to actually calculate anything of importance because the decimal system is a lot more reliable and useful for the kinds of work you often do) without letting it literally fall to pieces along the way is, surprisingly enough, kinda difficult.
Even more surprisingly, it's the kind of difficulty you kinda enjoy, like a little puzzle you can just absently fiddle with on your phone while waiting for the bus if you had to find a comparison like that. Y'know, back when you occasionally took the bus to get around and all that. Those little puzzle apps were great time-wasters when you couldn't just jog faster than a car to get somewhere, if even that.
…Note to self, try and see if you can't use power lines to move around as pure electricity whenever you get the opportunity. That sounds like a lot of fun, assuming you can make it work.
Look, the image of yourself jumping into and out of power outlets all over the place just brings a smile to your face, alright?
Anyways, islands, making them 'fall' upwards. Things generally don't do well in the 'structural integrity' department when gravity is casually reversed for them, so there are a few… mild accidents along the way, but a couple of rifts opening up in the soil and some pieces crumbling off you just shrug at before you make them follow along are the worst of it.
A field of inverted gravity below the main 'work' you're doing catches any debris well enough, and seeing as it's already broken you don't exactly give much of a fuck about it at that point; the stuff is just brought along for the sake of completion.
The real challenge, once you've solved the issue of stability, is to bring the whole arrangement up through the clouds around Skypiea, the massive self-maintaining cumulonimbus making up the place's environment being both gaseous enough to let solid rock and earth through it while still presenting enough density to make just pulling everything through a difficult prospect as it is.
In the end you just use your power on the clouds as well, making them less dense and actually somewhat more similar to normal clouds as long as your attention remains on them so you can get the first island through.
The second Island, once you've got Texa Texa Island (note to self, rename this thing later) settled down up in the White White Sea (as opposed to the White Sea, that being the layer of clouds below Skypiea proper, a largely featureless expanse of ocean clouds full of surprising amounts of cloud-marine wildlife actually) goes much the same way of course, the transition smoother once you've done it the first time and know how to pull this all off.
The next issue you face along the way, of course, is actually placing the island in its new place, which involves no small amount of shifting and shoving as you angle to get the right amount of buoyancy going while making sure it's properly anchored down in relation to Skypiea. Luckily, you did think ahead for this one- it's basically just a major engineering project involving subpar materials, when you think about it- and had a good amount of Island Clouds prepared ahead of time.
By which you mean you confiscated the stores of the stuff the Skypieans had lying around thanks to their cloud factories. Same difference, really.
Some creative use of the stuff later, you've got a fully transplanted island down, soon followed by the second one. Now, sadly, you may or may not have been seen while wrenching Robber Island out of the ocean- or your ship, flying at the time just to give you a nice, big source of weight to use as a reference point- but you're sure there's absolutely no way anything is going to come of that one.
Like, c'mon, who's going to believe any talk about you flying off with a whole island, right?
"I got it! I got exactly what we need! Figure it'll get the higher-ups off our case a bit, too."
Bounty Update: Leader of the Black Dead Sea Pirates, Wanted Dead or Alive
Appearance:
Crimes: Regicide, Murder, Resistance against World Government Members, Battery, Foul Language, Coffee Endangerment, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Misuse of World Government Property, Murder of Warlord of the Seas Crocodile, Crimes against Member Nations, Denial of World Government Authority, Being Too Handsome, Grand Theft Island
Amount: 320,000,000 Beri
By the time time the sun rises, the people up in the sky getting out of bed and exchanging weird greetings, you've got most of your work all done, including having the islands fit juuust right. Robber Island is a good bit smaller than Skypiea overall, looking at it now, but Texa Texa Island (again, new name soon) is just around the same size, you'd say.
Now you're just lying on one of those cloud-made beach chairs- you took one of those just so you can do this, in fact- and sipping some of that naturally fizzy juice, relaxing in the middle of what used to be Texa Texa's coastline as you watch the brightness of this place intensify slowly. Sunrise in the sky is something else alright, the white, vaporous horizon giving it a kind of ethereal impression.
Honestly, you could make a painting out of this. Maybe you will, too, or maybe you won't if inspiration doesn't quite take hold. Being an artist means having to just go with the flow with these kinds of things.
Behind you, Holy is already dealing with corralling the mutated cows the natives used to keep towards the parts of the island you want them at, running around and barking at them. Until they get up, their thick, quite muscled anatomy shifting accordingly, steam escaping their nostrils as they threaten him.
In response, your new dog also gets up on his hind legs, raising his paws and jabbing in the air to warm up. Turns out being the cow-equivalent of a sheepdog comes with a lot more physical challenge in this dimension, huh?
Ignoring the sounds of gratuitous animal-on-animal violence as you relax on the cloud-soaked beach, sipping more fizzy juice through the straw inside the head-sized fruit you cut open with your bare claws earlier. This sure is the life, huh?
The dream of life on your own ranch and shit to retire to in your old age was never really something you were into yourself, but you do get what people see in it. It's just that, well, if you ever did just grow old and retire like that, chances would've been, like, fifty-fifty that you'd eventually just end up with a bunch of girls tied up in the stables through no fault of your own, and for all that this would've been fun… Kind of hard to explain to a random police officer, see?
Though knowing your luck, that police officer probably would've been a hot chick herself that's kind of into whatever you'd have going on there, but that's neither here nor there.
It is now day
416 days since rising from the grave
16 days left in this dimension
Somehow, Holy is actually improving as a fighter by dealing with the livestock. Naturally, you will shamelessly claim this was a part of your plan all along.
Now then, you've got some plans for your newly acquired islands and all the space they offer for your use- or for the people's use, rather, considering your own plans to decidedly not stick around.
It's something you have to be very clear about, no matter how amusing it would be to manipulate the winged inhabitants of the sky you've basically conquered into becoming your personal murderous, slaving army subjugating the world. It'd be some work, but you could totally do it- except, well, why bother when you'd ultimately prefer to just be a bipedal natural disaster for the time being?
All that said, you have some time to work with still, because for all that you keep on harping on about it, you're still effectively on vacation and refuse to hurry the projects you've thought up for yourself while you've been assessing the current state of Skypiea. Instead, you'll just take your time, keep to your own priorities and, of course, make sure to get in plenty of rest just for the heck of it.
Your changed psychological situation, thanks to being… whatever you'd qualify yourself as, you suppose, lets you shrug through just about any amount of pain, boredom and stress, but that doesn't make any of those things all that pleasant, exactly, either. So really, there's no reason to subject yourself- or anyone else, for that matter- to any of them.
So there you are, back aboard the Grand Cruiser and eating a bite at a table installed just earlier exclusively so you can do so, looking out over Angel Beach to one side of the ship and the White White Ocean to the other. You were, at first, idly considering if you should invite everyone else over to make this a whole thing, not like you need much of a reason to just sit down and celebrate yourself, but in the end it felt better to target your attention a little, as it were.
Hence why you ended up dragging Nico into dining with you, though it's more of a breakfast when you consider the time. The woman sitting at your table looks perfectly rested, elegantly drinking some tea after having spent the night in her quarters inside the Grand Cruiser; it's nothing great by your standards, truth be told, which still qualifies it as a luxury suite in most ships purely due to the amount of space available to her.
Not that you're about to mention it, you get the feeling looking like you're desperate to somehow 'buy' her allegiance like that is the opposite of what you should be doing to get her to relax and open up a little. "So then," you begin, "I don't suppose we have some kind of destination off of whatever you read on that Poneglyph?"
"…" Setting her cup of tea down, Nico folds her hands over one another to rest her chin on them in turn. "Possibly. It said something about a certain island, though what exactly we will find there I have no idea."
Shrugging, you note that she absolutely isn't telling the whole truth, as she tends to when asked about important things like this. She's not lying though, you don't think, so… "Good enough for me," you smirk. "Not that I'm picky in terms of where to go. The plan is to stay here for a week or two, until Skypiea is stable enough to leave to its own devices, so how about we use the time… productively?"
It was freely possible for any and all to read the sacred text of their Shelter, inasmuch as they could. The artefact they had unearthed in place of the generator that had never been constructed could be difficult to read at times, as the pages shifted before one's very eyes, passages swimming into and through one another at the slightest provocation.
It took a calm mind and directed concentration to read it all to tame these handwritten letters bound into the pages, but not in place, by the darkest of ink. Most times, at any rate; some had an easier time reading some passages than others.
Now, speaking some of what one read aloud, on the other hand, was most often done only after carefully copying it down onto what little bits of paper they had left, to let others take a look and ensure nothing untoward would happen. After all, while most of the text was what seemed like an account of someone in much the same position as their own, other parts were more of a direct quote.
A direct quote that, by the very nature of its source, had more power than words should have by themselves.
Such as in this very moment, inside the Sanctum they had erected beneath the earth. It was a dark place, though roomy enough as it was, its very center taken up by the black stone slab they had unearthed and polished for use as an altar. Inside, any believers found they could see perfectly, no matter the lack of light, among other abnormalities.
More importantly in the moment, however, the… congregation, of sorts, was giving something a try. Something they had found within the depths of their tome, explained in the chapters pertaining to the nature of death and their God's power over it.
Hence the direct quotes, as one of them ritually took on the role of His likeness, speaking slowly and carefully for fear of what would happen otherwise, one hand raised over the altar. The altar upon which they had laid the exsanguinated corpse of one of the attackers coming for them only to be slaughtered one by one, outside their Shelter or in this very place afterwards.
Holding their artefact in the other hand, this one person barely paid it any attention despite its open pages. "'In death the body loses life, its meaning gone in flesh and bone; the remnant of a life once lived or life yet to come. Yet a memory of function remains in inert form, a construct of means large and small. Such is your purpose. I Grant Thee Life, I Grant Thee Death.'"
The dead body twitched, its arms stretching down into position beside itself, legs straightening out, its eyes opening wide as though to take in the darkness above; and like the darkness itself its eyes were a pure, sickening black, like a night that would never again know dawn.
"Give Praise To Our Lord, He Who Presides Over The End Of All Things."
The ceremony took some time, more than it might have were it not everyone's first time doing anything of this sort, but in the end… Well, there stood an undead servitor, eyes looking normal (or as normal as a corpse's eyes could be to look at) once again. A quick test showed it was as unbothered by the cold as those that had drunk from the chalice they left their blood offerings in, able to go out into the stormy snow outside the Shelter and work the coal mine with unnatural strength and endurance, never once eating, drinking nor taking a break.
Many a thought was had about this. In the end, though, the adult members of their group came to one conclusion.
"…We'll need more bodies, won't we?"
And here they'd already resolved themselves to cannibalism. But then, seeing as they'd found a way to get work done without feeding the hands that did it…
You know, Nico Robin has a lot of her little hangups she carries around with her, like baggage kept out of sight in a little purse whose strings she can ignore most of the time, but you can clearly tell it's there- it's in the way she always keeps her guard up, rather than just being reserved or serious, in how she's always subconsciously separating herself from the group and never refers to herself as part of the crew unless prompted somehow.
To be honest, you're content to let her be in that regard, just as you promised when you took her on- if she wants to treat your ship as a purely temporary thing she just rides along on until she jumps it, that's her decision and her business far as you're concerned. At the same time, though, it would be kind of a shame to miss out on her company because her hangups are causing her to act all irrationally, wouldn't it?
So you take some time out of your day to properly feel her out in this regard, just chatting amicably enough while eating breakfast.
"Really, it's kind of cute," you eventually remark, leaning onto one elbow as you smirk at Nico.
"What is?" She asks, her dark hair shifting with her head as she tracks your movement.
"The way you're so obvious." Smirking, you reach out to- boop her on the nose, the silly gesture seemingly stunning Nico for a moment, the woman blinking in momentary confusion. "You're still looking for the catch, aren't you?"
Looking past your (still outstretched) hand, Nico tilts her head in that way she sometimes does, face unreadable. For someone without your senses, anyways. She's a good actor, but her heartbeat still gives her away if you pay attention.
"You always did strike me as someone that's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because it always does. Someone does something stupid, the captain of the ship's unreasonable, or maybe… Some part of your past catches up to you."
Noting you've hit bullseye, you shake your head, bemused.
"We've already gone over this though, haven't we? I don't really care about what the World Government thinks and no amount of bounty money matters to me either, so it's not like any of it really matters at all," you shrug. "You really just need to get out of this mindset you're in at this point."
"…True enough," Nico shrugs, nodding. "It's just… a hard habit to let go of."
"Pretty common trait in people that have been on the run for a long time." You have plenty of experience with these kinds of things, particularly thanks to all the many pilfered memories of people in this exact position or that interacted with those that were you can draw on. "But hey, take your time. Just figured I'd point it out."
"Much appreciated." And in a way, you believe she means it, too. Nico has, as you already concluded, lots of little hangups. Massive trust issues perhaps chief amongst them.
"So interrupt me if I'm wrong, but you must've started running from the World Government pretty early on, huh?" Your choices for small talk topics are, as always, impeccable. Because of course they are. "That got anything to do with wanting to find out about the true history of the world?"
"…" Looking down at her teacup, the woman you're currently working on thinks for a moment. "It's why they destroyed the island I grew up in. We tried to learn how to read Poneglyphs, so the World Government issued a Buster Call when they found out."
You already know all of this of course, because Crocodile knew and all, but getting her to tell you is an important part of the process here. "And so they've been on your ass ever since, huh?" Shrugging, you offer her a half-hearted smile this time. "Sucks."
"That's one way to put it." Closing her eyes, Nico takes a deep breath or two. Honestly, it's still kind of amazing she isn't gasping for breath all the time with how thin the air is up here. "You've got me all figured out. How about you? I still have no idea what you really want."
Huh. Haven't you said it within her hearing range so far?
"Well, let's see… If I had to put it into words? I'm just on vacation," you shrug. "When you have phenomenal cosmic power at your fingertips, finding new and interesting ways to use it gets old at some point, so you have to mix it up, travel around, broaden your horizons… Just have fun, really. Picking a fight with the World Government by helping you discover the truth?"
Grinning, you lean in, as if you're about to tell her a big secret.
"That's just a bonus. When you're a big enough monster, making the fights come to you is just a matter of convenience. You're my good luck charm, really."
You wink, and this carefully applied amount of silliness finally gets Nico to crack a genuine smile. It's a small one, but that's just her being herself. "Really?"
"Really really." Reaching out, you lay a land over herself, looking her in the eyes. "If anything, I'd love to have bounty hunters after your head join any brave enough to come after mine. More food for me, after all."
Holding back what might be another smile, maybe even a snort of laughter, she moves her other hand over her mouth, half-hiding it with her fingers. The one you're gently holding onto the table right now she doesn't so much as twitch with. "Hmm. What if mine is bigger than yours?"
Oh. Really? Well, if that's how she wants to play this… "Then I'll just have to capitulate before the sheer girth of your 'crimes', don't I?" You chuckle. "What if mine is bigger, though?"
"What indeed? Maybe we should check."
Nico is still pointedly hiding her expression, but you can see in her eyes that she's actually having fun right now- you absolutely should keep flirting a little. See where this goes.
"My, right here in public? Think of what the poor children will say," you grin, nodding towards the nearest cluster of crew members currently playing an impassioned game of cards.
"Best retire somewhere more private then before I whip out the measuring tape."
Retire somewhere more private you do, in fact, mirthfully dragged along by Nico as she moves below deck. Once there, of course, you direct her towards your own quarters, purely because the place is convenient for these kinds of things.
That is, boning a woman's brains out. May as well use the infrastructure set up for your favorite activity for its intended purpose, right?
So you take her into your personal room, which largely consists of a large bed meant to fit however many lovers you're sleeping with bolted to the floor, a few gravity manipulation devices stuck underneath it to ensure that anyone lying inside is comfortable and not moving too much regardless of any waves or stormy seas crashing into the ship.
Comfort and luxury no matter the circumstance aren't an optional upgrade for you, they're the bare minimum standards. That aside, you've also got a few little cabinets lining the walls, a pilfered picture or two hung up (you didn't bother to paint anything yourself, so you just did the obvious pirate thing and stole some decoration from elsewhere), those kinds of things.
Most of the room just is and remains taken up by the expanse of your bed, covered by a mattress both soft enough to bring clouds to mind when resting on it (note to self, look into a mattress of literal clouds later, you're halfway sure the Skypieans use those anyways) and still hard enough to make moving and maneuvering on it easy as pie.
That last part's important for the primary purpose of the whole thing. Not like you actually make a habit of sleeping anymore, outside of the spots of hibernation you engage in.
And then you don't particularly feel anything at all, so how comfy this thing is wouldn't really matter in the first place.
Clothing is, of course, entirely optional in here, once the door is sealed shut, something you waste no time informing Nico about. Stripping them off entails a lot of mutual 'assistance', letting her use additional hands reaching towards you from all directions to pull your clothes straight off just as much as you demonstrate well-honed technique to do the same to her in turn, one article of clothing after another discarded by the side of your bed.
Nico's face remains pointedly impassive throughout most of the process, though she does blush a little as both of you grow increasingly naked. Her slender, yet well-endowed body remains uncovered nonetheless, unmarked by the trials of life at sea; despite her slim waist, she's actually curvy enough to rival Sarah or Kate.
She's also nearly as tall as you are yourself thanks to her long legs, her dark hair only serving to accentuate her very light tan. It seems like she doesn't have an ounce of unnecessary fat on her, except where it's wanted- her tits are nice and large in a way that draws the eyes straight to her perky nipples, all the while her hips bloom out in a similarly pleasing way.
She's also carefully shaved down south, meaning her pussy is on full display as well. Already you can't wait to dig in, you've really been waiting on her a bit too long- but first, the pleasantries. Gotta do things right and all that.
Smirking at her raised eyebrow at your focused inspection of her body (not that she wasn't doing the same, of course), you reach out to cup her cheek, the sudden intimate contact being re-initiated causing her eyelids to twitch for a moment. "You're beautiful," you tell her, an honest, straightforward opinion about these things always good to express like this in your opinion.
"Hm," she just makes, taking your input about as neutrally as can be. Then she smiles, shaking her head mirthfully. "Thanks. You don't look too bad yourself."
"A pleasure to meet your standards, Nico." Thumb sliding across her cheek, you lean towards her, going in for a quick kiss.
Her lips melt against yours, trembling a little. Not letting it last long enough to spoil, you let go again in short order, your free hand already going down her back in the meantime.
"Call me Robin," Nico Robin demands, breathy, two pairs of hands returning your gesture and running up and down your body now.
"Robin," you growl, grin in your eyes and your face both, grabbing her nice, fat ass with both hands to lift her up, the yelping woman pulled to rest against your bare chest. She clings close to you, even once you turn around to deposit her on your bed so she's lying on her back now. "I'm going to fuck you."
Looking up at you with a faint smile, her bright blue eyes unwavering, she brings for more extra arms, grasping your shoulders, your back, your own ass as well. "Bring it," she murmurs, bracing herself as she pulls her long legs apart just enough to give you some space.
So you do exactly as you promised. Shifting atop her a little, you angle your hard cock against her entrance, your tip resting against her for a few moments as she rearranges a couple of arms, your own hands landing next to her for balance. Then, slowly, you push forwards, steadily spreading her open around your big fat cock.
"Ngh!" Robin is biting her lips, but otherwise does her best to just take it. Not that you're about to make that easy for her- suddenly, you move your hips and thrust into her, eliciting a deep groan and some squeaks as you get going. "It's… big!"
Holding back the urgent use to remark 'that's what she said', you smile, finding that this sentiment of hers has been shared with you plenty of times. "And you're tight," you murmur, twisting to plant a kiss on the corner of her lips, making Robin start to openly pant, her breath soft against your skin.
It doesn't take you long to bury yourself balls deep inside this beautiful archaeologist's pussy, her wet folds clinging tightly to the entire length of your cock that now glistens in the light of your lamps every time you pull out only to drill back in deeper along the way. Eyes wide, Robin holds her breath once you're all in, at least five different hands digging their fingernails into your back.
It feels pretty pleasant with how durable your skin is. So you dip down for yet another kiss, just as you then start to really, properly plow Robin.
The bed is shaking, the woman you're with is quivering and shaking with every thrust and her breasts are bouncing up and down, legs shifting to entwine with yours. Life's good, to summarize the situation.
Robin comes pretty quickly, too, her eyes squeezed shut while her pussy milks your dick, waves of pleasure almost emanating outwards. Her moans come out sweet and urgent, so you take a moment to let her ride out the waves of her peak, brushing a strand of hair out of her face as you smile at her.
When she's done, blinking the sparks out of her eyes and looking up at you, you launch right back into it, just fucking her hard and fast and straight into your bed. Working Robin into an incoherent mess is going to take a bit, but-
Ah, she's coming again. And again. Turns out she's more sensitive when you don't stop, so you go right ahead and literally just bring her from one orgasm to another, making her come again and again as she sprouts more and more extra arms all over the place.
You only stop when she regains enough presence of mind to tap on your shoulder with one of them, sweaty, breathless body taking a moment of rest regardless of your cock still lodged inside her as deep as you can go, filling out her cunt all the way through.
"This is… too much," she gasps, unfocused gaze finding yours again. "Give me… a moment…"
Chuckling, you shake your head, holding her close. "Everyone drops at some point once I get started," you smile at her. "Just let it happen. It's fine."
Robin, too, shakes her head, but she does so in clear denial if anything. "I want to… make you feel good as well. Pull out."
What is this cute creature and why is she a little like Sarah in more 'private' moments like this?
Doing as she asks, you watch curiously as your ship's archaeologist turns around where she's lying, turning her back towards you. Seeing where this is going, you shuffle backwards a little, giving her some space to get on all fours.
Doggy style, is it? Well, if she wants to be bred like a bitch, you'll hardly-
One of Robin's arms reaches in from the side, slender fingers taking hold of your cock. Squeezing it tightly, she points it straight between the squeezable cheeks of her ass, which she's now stretching backwards- straight towards you.
"Oh? I had no idea you liked butt stuff," you chuckle quietly, going along with this.
"I'm not," Robin protests, though you can see her biting her lips even from this angle. "But men always do it really quick like this, so-"
"Oh, I should've warned you," you tell her, leaning over the woman you're about to fuck in the ass like it was going out of style. "I can control how quick I come. I just want to make you squirm and lose your mind before I do."
With that, you go right ahead, penetrating the winking rosebud of her asshole. "Hrgh!" Surprise and anticipation war through Robin, but in the end she just has to take your cock as it probes her back entrance, spreading it open much like it did the front earlier.
And take it she does, like a champ in fact. A couple of hands hand on your hips, too, holding on tight- and pulling you deeper into her, Robin's urging wordless yet hard to mistake.
"Someone can't wait to become a sloppy little mess, huh?" You chuckle, reaching around to fondle her heavy breasts as they hang down in this position. They're a very nice pair and deserve some appreciation, more than you'd bet they've been getting. "Hold on tight. I'll take you on the ride of your life and then some."
Look, you aren't about to stop until she's well and truly unconscious, fucked-out, caught in that dopey haze of pleasure nobody seems able to withstand. If you need to feed her your blood just so she survives the rigorous physical activity she's about to undertake without dehydration getting her that's just fine with you.
Using Mantra was a bit like knowing the spirits of other people around and a bit like feeling your way through a dark room and a bit like neither of those things. To Aisa, it was just how she saw the world, and she likened it a lot to 'hearing' people in particular, like a heartbeat unique to every person she'd ever seen that told her both how they were doing and what they were doing.
Normally, she just kind of… let it happen, taking it in without paying it much mind. And that worked well, unless something unusual was happening. If people were angry, it felt like a glowing hot red siren she couldn't ignore, and if their 'voices' disappeared, the silence afterwards was deafening. Painful.
Most of the time, Aisa was fine. It could just be distracting, but at least now she knew what was different between herself and everyone else. For a long time she'd just thought nobody else showed it when they felt Wyper picking a fight with half the village, or when Bad People were doing things to make other people feel bad somewhere on the vast Vearth, but not everyone had Mantra like her, so it made sense when Wyper asked her what she was feeling from elsewhere.
Not that she hadn't figured something out by then, but nobody had ever sat her down and explained the difference here to her until Kate did. She'd even held her hand and been patient with her, no matter how much she made fun of Aisa for being a crybaby.
Aisa had decided she liked Kate when she wasn't too annoying to be around. Maybe. A little.
She still really didn't like the man that had killed everyone around the Enel man. He'd stopped killing everyone, but she'd still felt all of the people disappear one by one, their voices going away suddenly, in shock and in pain.
And throughout it all, his own voice had never once changed. He'd felt the same walking around as he did killing them. Like breathing.
It was really, really scary. He'd looked at her, at all the adults from the village, like he'd looked at the people he'd killed moments before he killed them. If she had a choice, Aisa would just stay far away, hide and hope he went away on his own.
But that didn't happen, so now she just had to deal with what she got instead. And to be fair, a whooole~ bunch of Vearth showing up while he lounged on it was really amazing. The kind of thing that would be super huge and amazing and big words like that.
It was very different from the Vearth she sometimes came to steal when she knew nobody of the Enel people was around, more dry and bare in one place and covered only in short grass that went up to her thighs in the other, but it was Vearth! Making it appear was big news, and everyone, both Shandians and Skypieans, had gone to walk on it to see it for themselves.
Separately, of course. They still disliked each other.
Now she was back on the ship, trying to find new hiding places to stick to when the people on it annoyed her. Except she couldn't focus, because she'd finally noticed him being something other than mildly bored or hungry.
It felt… a little cocky and a little funny like the way some of the villagers felt when they were alone with someone they liked a lot, but a lot different from that, too. The one closest to him was the funny woman with the long legs, the one that was pretty quiet so Aisa liked her more than most strangers.
They were going inside the ship at the moment, so, curious, Aisa paid close attention, staring at planks of steel and the weird meat stuff underneath them she knew was there like she could see through them.
She'd learned to focus on her Mantra now, trying everything she could to distract herself when that man took her out to train and get used to what he called the more advanced applications of it, so that was what she did now, waving away the thoughts of him doing his own practice topless. Dammit, now she was thinking about it ag-
What were they doing? They were touching each other, and Aisa was, like, pretty sure they were taking off their clothes and-!
If she could have, she'd have covered her eyes with both hands, but she wasn't using her eyes to see and that was the story she'd stick with. Holding her breath (like that would help her hide what she was doing), she waited, wide-eyed, to see what would happen next.
The impressions she got were vague, but she could make out that the two were very close. And- and all of a sudden it was like she could feel a lot more than before, because they were feeling a lot of things, and there was a huge throbbing thing attached to him and-
Aisa swallowed, breath driven out of her chest as she got a secondhand account of how he shoved something into her, in a way both of them enjoyed a lot. And then he made her feel very, very good a bunch of times. And, and then he pulled out and she turned around and-
Oh wow. It could go in there, too?! How!? That made no sense! Why'd it feel just as good for her?!
Astonished, Aisa 'watched' on, mouth dry, as the two did a lot of stuff only lovers were supposed to do, except a lot more, eh, naughty than anything she'd ever felt anyone do in the village. All over the bed. And then against the wall. Several walls. And- why and how did they move onto the ceiling?!
In the end, Aisa was so spellbound she didn't even realize when someone called for her. It was only when Kate poked her forehead with one finger that she was returned to the world around her. "Hey twerp, you alright?"
"I- I'm fine and nothing is going on!" Phew. Good. Nobody would suspect anything.
"Hmm…" Looking down at where Aisa was hiding behind some barrels, Kate looked at where she'd been looking. "Oh, is this about them fucking?"
"Wha- You can't just say that!" She hissed, panicked.
"Sure I can, not like it's anything new," the woman from the Blue Ocean rolled her eyes before turning to shout across the ship's deck. "Hey Sarah, it finally happened!"
"Dammit Gabe!"
"See? Completely expected. If anything, I'm surprised you haven't jumped our man's pants yet."
Aisa was choking now, breathing evidently too difficult when her brain was turned all the way towards other concerns.
"There, there, try not to choke. Unless you're into it? No judgement, y'know, it's fine if you are."
Yup. She was definitely not using any words anytime soon. The mortification would do it even if the lack of air didn't make her lose consciousness.
Now then, Robin is well and truly fucked the heck out, as they say (or at least as you've decided to call it), her belly bulging just the slightest bit with the sheer amount of cum you deposited inside her and a faint smile on her face as she's dead asleep for at least the next couple hours. You left her tucked in, of course, the water retardant cloth of your bed making what would be an otherwise very annoying cleanup later much easier on everyone involved.
Even if it wasn't for the sheer amounts of cum threatening to leak out of various orifices, all the sweat would mean you'd be better off just trashing it all and getting new covers at the very least otherwise.
Honestly, you weren't quite expecting her to be up for letting herself be dragged into your bed like this, but then, neither are you all that surprised, either. It kind of comes with the territory for you.
With this pleasurable little diversion done for the moment, you can go ahead and turn your attention towards your numerous other priorities at hand. That is, you were planning to go grab Aisa and make her practice using her Mantra properly for most of the day, but according to Kate's interposing thoughts once you make the decision to actually get to it the girl needs a little time to herself right now.
On the one hand, ensuring someone doesn't have time to think and make their own decisions without your input is, like, gaslighting 101. On the other hand, Kate's pretty used to dealing with these kinds of things and you really don't want to bother messing with her own style of doing things, so… You'll put it off for a bit, you suppose. Not like you don't have plenty of other things to do anyways.
Speaking of, you ultimately end up hopping back onto the island of Skypiea to play god for a bit- as opposed to playing God, which you do all the time anyways. Bit of an occupational hazard to do so, you're afraid.
But yeah, more to the point, you're currently going out of your way to fiddle with the fascinating little shellfish whose shells the inhabitants of the sky use as Dials. They're unique to this particular biosphere, as far as you know, and definitely worth a second look based on what they do.
The shells of these things literally absorb specific forms of energy and matter, then re-emit them when pressed in the right spot. This is, like, shit you'd expect from some crazy bio-tinkered organisms, not completely 'normal' forms of life, okay? Something fucky is definitely up with them.
There's a variety of Dials that absorb kinetic energy and throw it back out, whether in the form of straightforward 'pushing', as a slicing wave of force or even amplifying whatever force they previously took in several times over. These so-called 'Reject Dials' are rare due to the shellfish they're made of being somewhat extinct, but still, another point on the list of reasons why Dials are insane.
Incidentally, the reason they're extinct is that the habitat of the shellfish used to be the island Enel came from. They were extinctionated when he blew it up in a giant, solar-powered beam explosion. Yet another thing to call him a cunt for.
Then there's Flame Dials, which literally take in and emit fire, there's ones for smells, more general heat, sounds (those ones you actually found back on the surface of the planet, incidentally), light, air, images (they make their own little cameras here using those) and, like, half a dozen variations of Cloud Dials that produce different kinds of clouds, from making them hard and metal-like to using them as propulsion by shooting them out and all.
With the Dials around this place you could totally build a whole-ass civilization's worth of technology, honestly. There's even one that does electricity!
Suffice it to say there's a lot of potential in these things, especially when using some gentle bio-engineering on your part. That is, it would be if you were criminally insane and careless enough to pull out ADAM or FEV in a world that already has such freaks of nature as, well, Sea Kings. Or literally any and all animals in existence here.
You're pretty sure you have yet to see any actually normal animals, at least. Throwing around any of the highly mutagenic, borderline bullshit magic substances you usually use for the sake of modifying genetics on the fly in this environment might well have… unfortunate consequences, to put it lightly.
So you go ahead and get a little creative about things. Just a little. Your efforts involve minimal amounts of the FEV/ADAM mix you usually use to achieve more or less stable results, mixed in with some of the microscopic amounts of Seastone that's found practically everywhere around here when you look closely.
Followed by thorough purges of several cloud-islands you use for your quick and dirty experiments, just to make sure the abominations resulting from your possibly slightly moderately mad science don't get loose (or, yourself forbid, reproduce). But in the end, while you don't necessarily achieve all your goals, you do get some pretty decent end results out of it all, for a couple hours' worth of work.
"And thus I present to you the Video Dial. It's like a Vision Dial, except it can take in moving images in addition sound." Making the things crossbreed properly to get the new strain of Dials just right was a major pain in the ass, by the way. You honestly could've spent half the time you did on this project if it wasn't for their weird insistence on taking video exclusively in black and white.
Turning the Dial around and pressing against its backside covered in a reel-like pattern, you make the thing project the image of yourself saying what you just said, complete with pointing straight at the viewer. "'And thus I present to you the Video Dial. It's like a Vision Dial, except it can take in moving images in addition sound.'"
"Impressive," Gan Fall remarks as you hand him the thing, standing at attention inside the building set aside for government business ever since the previous seat of governance got Enel'd. "I am sure these will find good use, depending on how many of them are available."
"Oh, I made a few dozen and kept breeding pairs around, it shouldn't be an issue," you wave him off. "I was thinking we could use the new coastal areas of the additional islands to breed more, aside from the space taken up by the lobsters. We'll, uh, probably need the space if we want to make the other breeding projects viable."
"The other projects?" The old man asks, clearly reading something in your tone of voice that absolutely is no cause for concern whatsoever.
"It wouldn't fit through the door, but I may or may not have looked into creating a bigger, more powerful version of some select Dials," you hedge your explanation. "So there may be a giant Fire Dial that's meant to be used while I'm gone in case of another wanna-be conqueror coming along. It's kind of like a Reject Dial, just for fire instead."
You think the stuff it fires out may be more accurately described as plasma, but really, what's a low-powered plasma cannon or two between friends, right?
Aisa is staring at you whenever you aren't obviously looking in her direction when you finally finish things up and pick her up to continue her training in the art of being clairvoyant by virtue of being born with really perceptive Haki. You don't really pay it much attention for a bit, just going right back to the little clearing you use for your own little training arc, but it turns out this newfound tendency to think herself subtle is actually interfering with her own training.
So, left with little other choice, you finish your current set of exercises- at the moment you're trying to see if you can't replicate some of your tricks with Aura using Haki, going from reinforcing your own body to actively projecting it outwards to attack, so you're just kind of punching the air on front of nearby trees and enjoying the mild breeze created every time you do- and turn around to face her, letting the wind play over your skin.
You'd think it would be damn cold this far up above the planet's surface, but it's actually not too bad overall. Maybe it's the proximity to the sun or the clouds' tendency to more easily absorb heat throughout the day than they would if they were normal ones, but the overall temperature is pretty mild throughout the day. Honestly, it's downright tropical, even, maybe due to the high humidity here. All the clouds imitating water probably have something to do with that.
During night it does get kind of cold if you go further from Skypiea itself, but in the vicinity of the island (now islands) it's little worse than on the ground. Discounting the fucked up climates of this planet, anyways, with islands not experiencing different seasons so much as being regionally locked into a particular pattern of temperature and weather more often than not if you're only looking at the Grand Line.
The four Blues are a lot more normal, or maybe just 'less insane' if you want to be accurate, but yeah, Skypiea's pretty livable all in all. Not that being freezing as duck would stop you from running around shirtless, but it does make for a more pleasant experience hands down, in your humble opinion anyways.
"You okay there, Aisa?" You ask, rolling your shoulders once or twice. You don't get sore or anything anymore, going through the motions just feels nice.
Alarmed, the girl in question twitches in place, fiddling with her hands in lieu of looking at you. "I-I'm fine. It's nothing."
So there is something, huh? You know, that's more than you usually get when you ask a girl this kind of question. "Sure thing. Want to talk about whatever this 'nothing' is or…?"
Somewhere between paling like a freshly washed bed sheet and going bright red, a contrast that looks kind of funny against her brown skin, Aisa hurriedly shakes her head. "No!"
"You sure?" Coming a little closer, you stop when the girl flails at you almost comically, nearly falling over backwards on the fallen tree you sat her down on earlier.
"Yes! Stay! No coming closer!"
Chuckling, you shrug, smirking at her. "Fine, fine, just let me know if anything's bothering you. And don't slack on your Mantra training, got it?"
Her eyes dip up and down your body for a moment, then she shakes herself out of it, clapping her hands onto her cheeks to forcefully focus already. "I won't," she promises.
Good enough for you, long as she's making some steady, moderate process. If you're gonna teach someone, the first thing you have to teach them is how to learn and all that.
In the end, you take the liberty of taking a little extra time with Aisa, briefly brainstorming a few ways to ensure she pays attention and keeps her focus steady, the two big pillars on which Haki rests. It's ultimately just a matter of sheer willpower when you get down to it, really, but when trying to train with it keeping focused is pretty dang helpful overall, from what you've been able to figure out so far.
Or maybe that's just you being yourself and finding it easy to focus as long as you're making measurable progress, then conflating that with the progress you're making. Either way it can't really hurt, unless there's an unexpected element of it being easier to do Haki stuff by staying all relaxed.
You doubt that one though, personally. If anything, being nuts and clocking up to eleven seems to give many applications of Haki somewhat greater impact.
Now, you have some options on how to properly motivate Aisa to do her best, but while putting her in the middle of Skypiea's jungle in the territory of whatever large predator of appropriate size to think of her as a snack would be faintly amusing, it probably wouldn't be worth the trauma you'd be inflicting… And really, there are easier ways to get her used to properly sense for threats at all times.
Now if you were trying to teach her how to fight, you may be evaluating your possibilities a little differently, but as it stands there's really no point in this one. Instead, you simply grab her from where she sits, take a seat yourself and deposit her right on your lap, paying no heed to her squeak of surprise as you do so.
The girl freezes in place, but you don't let that stop or even particularly bother you as you wrap one arm around her waist, keeping her comfortably in place for the moment. "You know, Aisa, there's something I've noticed earlier," you tell her, smiling down at her right above her head. "Want to know what that is?"
Still holding very, very still, Aisa hesitantly looks up, though at this angle she can't exactly see you anyways. "Nooo…?"
"Too bad, you don't get a choice," you chuckle. "It's alright, though. You not being able to take your eyes off me, I mean."
Stirring in protest, the girl on your lap tries to say something, but your other hand rising up to put a finger over her lips, shushing her, has her keep quiet after all.
"I'm not gonna blame you for it or anything, so you don't have to hide it is what I'm saying," you grin, pulling her against your chest, her short, dark hair tickling against your bare chest. "If you're horny, you can just say so."
Her lips now freed from the tyranny of a single digit of yours, Aisa sets them into a fierce pout, evidently unhappy with your assurances. "I'm not- horny?!" She complains, arms twitching as though to cross themselves, only for the maneuver to be aborted when she realizes she'd have to move them over your own arm.
"Yup. Horny." Chuckling, you lean back, ignoring the little sounds she makes from the back of her throat as you pull her with you. "It's perfectly normal, you know?"
Aisa adjusts her position on your lap, so you go right ahead and let the sensation of her butt rubbing over your crotch do their thing; you're not exactly getting a boner here, but your dick does perk up a little, hardening just a bit to signal its interest in what's going on right now.
The cause of this effect goes all frozen again, eyes open wide as she feels something hard pressing against her from beneath, rubbing back at her butt and between her legs. Then, remembering she thought she was upset, she goes back to pouting. "I'm not horny. That's not what's happening."
"Oh, really?" Because she's a female humanoid in your immediate vicinity. Just saying, you kind of doubt that. "Let's check, shall we?"
"Wha-" Nope, no time to wait for her response. In a flash both your hands are on her breasts, holding and fondling them through the thick leather of her little dress. It's a little hard to make out through that, but you're pretty damn sure those are some hardening nipples you're currently pinching at.
"Hmm, can't be quite sure like this, can we?" You chuckle, fingers flowing all over Aisa's front as you make for the hem of her dress. "Better be sure, right?"
"Aah… no, wait!" Contrary to what she thinks she wants, you do not, in fact, wait. Instead you reach under her clothing, exploring her tan skin with your hands, sliding up over her belly and sides to finally end up back on her chest. "Dooon't…"
She hisses while inhaling her next breath, your gentle touch setting nerves on fire and blanking out her brain. Aisa's breasts are fairly small compared to some you've seen- heck, Sarah, Kate and Sherrel are with you, just to point out some extreme cases- but still, any size is plenty of fun far as you're concerned. So you rub the soft patches of budding growth, pinching her cute little nipples and generally playing with what may as well be your personal property now that you've got your hands on it.
Gasping at the feel of being felt up, she doesn't even react when one of those hands of yours changes target, going back down to poke at her bellybutton on the way. That said, Aisa sure does notice when you keep going from there, warm fingers exploring inch by inch of soft skin until you reach what you're after.
"Uaah!" Both hands slung around the arm now exploring the soft, wet opening between her legs, Aisa's gritting her teeth, breathing heavily while unsure where to look. "Stop! What- what are you doing!"
"I'm helping you with that little issue you were having, that's all," you soothe her, one finger sliding up and down the sensitive lips of her pussy with just enough pressure to part them. "If you want me to stop, you just have to tell me to… In a way that convinces me you mean it, anyways."
The illusion of consent, ladies and gentlemen. It can help, but is not strictly necessary far as you're concerned.
In any case you don't exactly give Aisa any time to think about this one; one hand on her chest, one down below, you basically masturbate her like you were playing a guitar, one finger slowly making its way into her sweet little honeypot, her pussy sharing none of her concerns in favor of clamping down on your finger the moment it pushes inside her proper. A second colleague follows it shortly after, and you begin to stroke into her with them both, her whole body shuddering in time with your every move.
You don't really want to overdo it right now, so you just kiss the top of her head the moment she comes, half-babbled moans melting away in the face of well-practiced technique. Aisa quivers and shakes, limbs stretched and flailing out for a brief moment, then she loses every bit of strength she has, falling limp in your embrace.
"There you go. Isn't that better?" You ask, slowly pulling your fingers out of her wet little pussy. "Or did that just make it worse? I'm never sure which it is."
Note to self, Shandians taste kind of different from normal people. Or is that just Aisa? Regardless, when you give her fluids a taste, languidly licking your fingers clean with your overly long tongue, you register a subtly different note from what you're used to. Could come down to a difference in diet or something, but it's kinda neat.
(Disclaimer: All subjects detailed in text and graphics are at minimum 42 years old. You have been warned. There better be no bitching.)
"Mhm," you make, having made a decision. "Just made it worse, I suppose. Not to worry, I can fix that."
Aisa still smells of borderline desperate arousal and sheer need, so your work with her isn't yet done, to say the least. Not particularly waiting for her to recover from the high she just experienced, you go right on ahead and shuffle her sweat-soaked dress up her thighs, getting it nice and out of the way real quick.
By the time she's regained functional neuron activity, her bare thighs are resting on your legs, deformed by her own weight on them. As for yourself, well, you just went ahead and pulled out your cock, letting it poke out in front of her, right between her legs- where it's about to go, in other words.
Waiting just a moment longer to let Aisa come back to her senses, her pussy producing enough moisture to slowly trickle onto your cock, you just go and rub her back a little to accelerate the process. When her brain is done turning off and on again, she still takes a moment to mutely stare down at herself, mouth agape, look backwards and up at you, then back down.
"That can't possibly fit inside someone," she whispers.
"You'd be surprised how often I hear that," you chuckle in response.
"No, I mean it! How does- wait wait wait wait!"
You don't wait so much as you slow down, having just grabbed her by her hips to gently lift her up, her hands on your hands as Aisa hurriedly tries to make you let go. "What is it, sweetie?"
Shuddering at the depth of your voice now, reportedly the kind of voice that runs up and down your spine when you hear it, she earnestly tries to negotiate with you. "If- if you do anything right now, I'll break!"
"Oh? Like you 'heard' Robin do?" You ask, smiling.
"Yes! I mean no! I mean-!"
"What if I want you to break?" The question is asked calmly. Almost intellectually curious. Looking her in the eyes, you position her above your cock, a few drops of wetness hitting your erection even now after a moment, naked legs spread wide in entirely unconscious preparation. "What then, Aisa?"
"Y-you shouldn't!" But despite her words, her hands are grasping your wrists tightly, not even trying to pull them away.
"Good thing I love doing things I shouldn't do," you whisper, clearly audible.
With that, you don't drop her so much as you pull her down, unguarded pussy parting smoothly thanks to the sheer amount of moisture she's producing; it has to spread open wide to wrap around you, the sheer girth of your hard-on pushing her further than you suspect she's ever been before, but you're here to bury your cock inside her and that's exactly what you do.
"Hic- gah-!" Somewhat overwhelmed by the somewhat sudden penetration, Aisa's value as a partner in conversation plummets tremendously. Luckily for her, her value as a sex object can make up for this deficiency in spades. She's hot, and tight, and her shivers result in her inner walls twitching in a way that just feels great.
Of course you don't sick yourself all the way inside her, if only to slowly get her used to your size. 'Slowly' being very relative, of course. Stroking her sides, you pull her deeper inch by inch, her overburdened pussy tasting you bit by bit, until you hit that fleshy, hard barrier at the very end of things.
Aisa's mouth hangs open, tears gathering in her eyes at the intensity of the experience. You wipe one of those tears off, reaching around her head, and taste it just like you did her other bodily fluids earlier; this one, as expected, is a little salty.
Firmly grabbing her by her hips again, you start dragging her back up along your cock once you've let your tip rub her womb just a moment longer. "You're taking it so well, Aisa," you whisper. "But we're far from done yet. Come on. Break for me."
With that, you start bouncing her up and down on your lap, fucking her nice and hard, your pace mercilessly steady. The only sounds in the clearing are that of your cock plunging in and out of her wet snatch, her labored breathing punctuated by more of those little sounds she can't help but make and the steady clapping of her butt on your lap. You have to lean back a little when her wings start to flatter aimlessly with every downwards plunge, her vocabulary reduced to grunts and halting moans at best.
It doesn't take long at all for this treatment to have her come, more fluid leaking from her eyes and mouth just as much as from the rest of her, sweat and girlcum splattering a little with every thrust. And the best part of it all?
Throughout everything, Aisa's scent of horny has only intensified. You can literally smell how much she's enjoying herself.
When you come, you do it all the way inside her, both your arms holding her slim belly and waist tightly. Thrusting upwards gently, you poke at her innermost depths, as if to jokingly telling them to open up for delivery, and Aisa joins you by coming again as well.
By the time you're done, she's hanging bent over forwards, only held in place by you as she loses any and all semblance of a non-mollusc. Chuckling again, you gently pull her upright, reaching under her hat to awkwardly pat her head.
"We aren't done yet, of course. I'll probably need to teach you about Armament just so you can make it to the end of one of these sessions one of these days, huh?"
Aisa drools in response, brain activity once again restarting.
"Yup. Good talk."
Time to see how many orgasms you can force into her tender body before she shuts down for the night.
You know, some days having a crew of pirates under your command is a bit like herding cats, what with their tendency to just run around doing whatever comes to mind and reserving their better judgement for trying to come up with excuses for their behavior afterwards. They aren't stupid, to be as clear about this as possible, they just choose to apply their intelligence in ways that leave you shaking your head more often than not.
Other times, though, they can actually be downright helpful, by the exact same measure. If whatever they happen to be doing isn't somehow going to be a pain in your ass, you usually just let them go right ahead and see where they end up, to results ranging from surprising, useful and all the way to quite annoying if and when they still somehow manage to screw up.
This time around, you suppose you can still make use of what they're up to, once you're back on the Grand Cruiser and got Aisa stowed away in your cabin- Robin's already back in her own sleeping off what you did to her earlier, lying on her side instead of her back. You're pretty sure Kate or Sherrel probably brought her there just to get her comfy and out of your way for the moment.
If they didn't, you'd have just put both of them next to each other and taken pictures, it'd totally be super cute.
Anyways, with that out of the way, you can get back to the crew- who are currently playing around with a bunch of Dials they asked some of the locals to get for them. They aren't exactly rare up here, or at least most of them aren't; Skypiea actually has a pretty massive stockpile of most of the ones used during the citizens' daily lives, seeing as the practice of farming the things isn't exactly new or anything.
It's just one way people secure their livelihood, really. Same as the cloud factories they have up here, for that matter. Shellfish farming and cloud cutting just kind of replace tool manufacturing and furniture plus architecture, for a large chunk of the inhabitants of the sky.
Incidentally, the Shandians make use of Dials, but actually build their homes and stuff out of wood and leather instead of solid clouds. Just one of the many cultural differences you couldn't give less of a fuck about personally, but that still do divide people to some extent.
Anyways, the more common types of Dials are available in abundance, the things don't actually go bad whether they're used or not, so your crew can easily just ask around and be given plenty of the things for their own use. Which, given that you did in fact allow them use of your very own Necronomicon, understandably leads to some among them getting a little… creative, with their use.
So when you come in to the sight of them installing one of the oversized, overcharged Plasma Dials (which is what you decided to call the huge Dials you created, like, a day or so ago for the moment) into your ship, you're torn between stopping them just to make sure they don't screw up and blow up half your own work on it and encouraging them to keep going, maybe even help them give your ship a giant-ass plasma… Honestly, you aren't sure whether it's meant to be a weapon or basic rocket propulsion using the thing.
One of the benefits of basically being your own chief engineer is that even if technological challenges spring up with something you've had a hand in building come up down the line, you likely know exactly what you have to do to solve them. Even more so when you're actually competent at what you're doing and design things to make them easy to work with- without sacrificing durability or general usage parameters, of course.
So, too, can you simply dredge up all your memories of completely retrofitting the Grand Cruiser to fit your personal requirements after you stole the original ship- as well as how to properly take it apart without doing too much damage to the surrounding areas and integrate, say, a source of great propulsion as is the case with the Plasma Dials.
About the size of a person standing upright, more or less, the things take it fire, then put it out again on the other side. Normally, this doesn't produce much force going back in the other direction, but there are some Dials- notably the now very rare Reject Dial- that just kind of do so anyways.
Maybe it's because they're just so big and have such a significant output, or maybe it's due to your process in artificially flash-modifying their DNA and making the things breed a bunch to the point the actual shellfish absolutely wouldn't survive in the wild, but Plasma Dials do much the same, to the point they may well be used to push something with the sheer thrust their activity, once triggered, produces. Hence the crew trying to install one in the back of the Grand Cruiser- to make it go 'even extra faster' for short periods of time.
Never let it be said your minions don't make you proud. Even if they're a pain in the backside most of the time.
So you go ahead and help them, because why the hell not, right? If they're gonna work on the ship, you may as well make sure they do it right. You have some standards and if they want to modify your work, those standards better be kept to, or else.
So you just go ahead and tell them not to bother thinking small. Go big instead. So you go grab a second Plasma Dial instead of just the one, take off basically the entire back of your ship and get right to work modifying most of its insides as you go.
Gotta disperse the force after all, it may be able to regenerate but you refuse to have it break just because the stress of the added propulsion adds up to whatever else goes on at the time. Then you have to put in a mechanism by which the Dials are fueled with copious amounts of incredibly hot flame- or, even better yet, plasma, so you do just that using a pair of Eldritch Cores the Thinker is kind enough to provide you from her seabed hideout where she's currently just building stuff for fun.
You know, if anyone ever told you an incredibly advanced AI would do the sci-fi equivalent of playing with Legos to pass the time, you'd have been pretty confused, but hey, here you are. Life sure takes you funny places if you let it.
""We heave and we hoe, yes we mean your mother,
When we work on the boat doing something or other,
Yes we'll shake and we'll screw, we'll build something new,
'cause we're Dead Sea Pirates, complete with the crew!""
"Eh, it's still a bit off, to be honest," you comment as you lift one of the heavy Dials into place and fit it into its new housing, referring as much to the rhymes as to the tune. "Also, 'your mother' jokes are really old. Come up with some better material."
"Aye aye, capt'n!" "Can we take a break to brainstorm shanties, sir?" "Or just take a break, it's almost morning."
"No breaks until we're done here. Now be careful, if I have to rebuild any more of the ship than necessary someone's getting all the chores to deal with for a week."
In the depths of the cold, harsh place the world had become, life had followed the environment's cue. Few were the people that still clung on to a measure of civility when tomorrow was not a given anymore, more than a few survivors falling prey to the ever-present danger of infighting, of disunity, of man tearing at man like a feral animal desperate for just another day, another hour, another minute of survival.
This phenomenon would be more common had the cold and the hunger not already weeded out most human beings all around. Banditry made little sense when anyone you might rob had so little it wasn't worth taking to begin with, and only the most desperate were willing to resort to cannibalism considering how little meat most still clinging on to this mortal coil had on them- even aside from the obvious issues with such things.
Still, when it was the survival of your community or someone else's, some might be driven to great lengths. Especially when hearing tales of warmth and safety, of food meager, but present. Of people degenerating into subhuman behavior anyways, so would it really be so wrong to take what they had?
Well, the people convinced of such by 'refugees' that had come to beg for shelter found out the hard way that Faith may beget inhuman strength of will at times, especially when mixed with righteous indignation. As such, when they returned to the bare-boned settlement they had come from, they did so in the form of dead bodies walking on their own two feet, the vanguard of the very same people that had slain them.
The ones more or less intact, anyways. As it turned out, being smashed to smithereens could impact the functionality of these walking corpses, just a tad.
What they were headed for was the skeleton of a village, some days' march from the Shelter if one was willing to measure such things by the mindless, desperate standards of the Exodus. Being carried atop sleighs by aforementioned Walkers, untiring and uncaring of the cold, allowed for similar speeds overall, for all that it remained pretty uncomfortable.
The settlement itself was what remained after most of a village that had been taken over long after the original inhabitants fled the cold, scavenged and cannibalized of anything useful for building shelter, leaving a handful of snowed-in huts centered around a single communal building that might have been a church, once. A thin, anemic cone of smoke rose over it, and it was obvious even from afar whatever group was squatting in this place was slowly dying unless it packed up and kept on the move in search for food and fuel soon.
Luckily for them, that choice would be taken out of their hands soon enough.
A desparate mother was currently kneeling in what remained of the old church's place of worship, hands folded in prayer as she was consumed with fear for her children. There were two of them and it had taken her everything to keep them alive, from carrying them on her back even when she felt like she'd fall over and die the moment she stopped walking to fucking half the men in the group to get enough scraps of food for both of them to live off of.
Back when anyone still had the energy to have sex. Now it was so cold the mere thought made anyone's nethers freeze over at the thought of taking off just enough clothing to use them that way.
Showers, warm or cold, were a distant, fantastical memory at this point, simply keeping yourself warm enough not to choke on disease as your body weakened replacing almost all other needs. She knew her children would die soon. If it wasn't the cold, the hunger would do it. If not the hunger, sickness. If not sickness, the exhaustion.
Still she hoped and she prayed for just another day. Another hour. Another minute of their lives.
"Please, God. Please. I know we are forsaken. But." Just speaking had her choke up, breathing and whispering at the same time taking so much from her she almost drifted off into coughing instead. "Please. Anything."
Maybe it was humanity's punishment, all their sins coming back to bite them all, but her children, at least… Should be spared. It was all she could think of. Or did guilt by association taint every man, woman and child so deeply even God had decided they were beyond salvation? Should she have protested more when the men of their group had gone off to find food and something to burn, no matter what?
Was it the last straw? Or just the last in a long list of disappointments with her, with all of them, that their children would have to deal with until none were left? Had the Flood come in the form of endless ice and snow to wipe the slate clean once again?
So great was her despair, her supplication so complete, that she barely noticed when shouts became heard outside, others rushing from where they slept around their pitiful fire made from what bibles were left in the house of the lord to see what was going on. She ignored it as much as the screams that followed.
She stayed there, praying, to a God she could only pray was listening. Her sanity may have been somewhat tarnished at this point, but it was the only thing she could think to do anymore, anything and everything else exhausted or useless at this point.
Until a man stepped behind her, no louder than anything else now happening behind her as she knelt before an at best non-doctrinal altar. More of a shitshow that defiled the entire church at this point, but it really only underlined the overall situation she was in now. For some reason, his footsteps tore her out of her meditation of a prayer that no storm and no cough could stop.
Not even death would have stopped her, had he bludgeoned her head in now, her very last moments spent pleading to the heavens, as she imagined, morbidly. Maybe it would be nice. To finally be able to give up. For all her love, she had nothing left to give, after all.
But he stopped, and she stopped, and they both stayed like this for a long, long moment as the others were dragged out from where they were hiding, the remaining men never having returned from looking for what was happening, him standing behind her, her kneeling in prayer.
"It's the wrong god," he finally said, like it was a warm summer evening and they had met to discuss over a cup of coffee. "I never was all that faithful, but… He never was real. Or if he was, he's been gone since a long, long time ago."
If such things as religion still held much value, maybe his words would have been blasphemous. But with the state of the world… Its end… It felt hard, to argue otherwise.
Breathless, she was stuck between coughing and laughter for a long moment. It all just felt so… absurd. Why even bother living if she felt like a ghost in her own skin at the end of the day?
"It's all I've got left… for my children…" She informed him, head turning to look at the man from deep, sunken eyes, her gaunt face barely human anymore at all, just like the rest of her.
"The wrong god…" He repeated with a sigh, shaking his head. "We found something. Where the Generator was supposed to be."
"Never completed," she whispered, not enough strength in any part of her to push herself upright. "They didn't announce it, but the locals knew."
"Yeah. Just some construction stuff left in the snow when we came. And something else. Buried under the snow." He looked at her. She looked at him. Between them, a moment of understanding bloomed. It was painful in her chest, the hope hanging on his next words cutting into her more painfully than the hunger gnawing at her bones. "Our old god was false. But He left us something there, where people would find it."
"They said…" She coughed a time or two. "They said something about a cult." And human sacrifice, killing any that came near where this cult was.
"I s'pose that's what we are now. Kind of. Thing is? Our God is real, now. He listens when we pray. He feeds us if we hunger. He taught us things."
Something dark welled up in his eyes. She felt like she stood not before a man, now, but something much, much larger. Darker. Like she balanced on the tip of a tongue poking out of a maelstrom of hunger, the same thing she felt. Unending. Eternal.
Divine.
Pulling herself around by the nails her clumsy hands could dig into the stone she sat on, she realized this was it. Salvation or damnation were at hand, and she couldn't say she even cared which anymore.
"Tell me more about our lord and savior then."
This was how the High Priestess joined the Chosen people.
"…though the temperature's low, our purpose is much higher."
Whose idea exactly it had been to give the more than half-starved, barely standing woman the book filled with lovecraftian, eldritch knowledge remained unknown, but the moment she'd laid hands upon it and taken a single look, an uncanny strength had filled her hands and her voice, eyes growing intense and glowing with their own twinkling light when one looked carefully.
Right after her children had been taken to the lower caves together with all the other civilians everyone agreed to take in, of course. Leaving them all where they were, after most of the grown men in the group had died in an unfortunate case of seeking death at the hands of the Faithful, would've been as good as killing them all themselves, hence why they'd gone out to fetch the women, children and remaining men left behind to guard them… The latter being in somewhat worse wear, but most of them hadn't died in the brief scuffle that occurred when they realized who exactly had come for them.
"We are the coming of the dark. Our Lord has many names, among them the End of All Things. All this and that will ever be shall end, and in doing so become Him." Closing the book up with steady hands belying the shivering, stuttering mess she had been mere minutes ago, she stared at the impromptu congregation, the words bubbling up behind her brain never once stopping. "We must become one with our God."
"This is starting to sound pretty dangerous."
"Yeah, uh, should we try to take the book from her and have her recover a bit?"
"Look, we have food and stuff, how about-"
"True Grace is found at the hand of God. The real one. Divinity transpires before us."
"Uh… Guys?"
None had noticed at the time, but before they knew it, they were in the underground chamber holding the blank, black altar- the temple they had built, dug out of soil solid as rock and roughly made ready as much for storage of the otherworldly objects they had found and created themselves as for worship itself.
In the perpetual dark of this place, light was dampened away into nothingness, entirely unneeded. Yet even so, seeing in the dark, all present could make out an eerie shine in the distance, further than the dimensions of this place should allow.
It was a stillborn moon, risen above the preaching woman's form. Impossible to miss once you saw it. To stand before it made you feel watched- not observed, but noticed in a way that crawled up and down your spine, made you feel small and insignificant. Not because you were, necessarily, just because the thing watching you was so much bigger and more powerful than you.
It was clear, despite the obscuring mysticism of this strange moment, that what they witnessed was beyond anything imaginable by sane minds. Until then, they had just been doing what they could to survive, taking one stab in the dark after another, at times helped by whoever or whatever the book was connected to, at times stumped and confused at what the hell they were even doing.
Now, in the eye of their God, they felt it. Awe. Like the feeling when you go into an old, old church, its ancient stones and colorful windows giving you an impression of what you were supposed to feel before God.
The darkness was the walls of His house. It was His harbinger and vessel, the proof of His presence and power in one.
Now, they had been admitted into it. They breathed the dark, subsumed and were subsumed by it. On the face of things, nothing big changed, but any and all present knew, deep down, that something never would be as it had been before.
Their shivers as they lowered their heads in realization and recognition had nothing to do with the cold, for once.
And to think, all it had taken to initiate the metamorphosis of their people was someone to throw themselves unto the flames, to let God into their heart and from there to reach out to all others. Madness. Fervor. Zeal. However you wanted to call it, this woman had it.
It would be the righteous spark that brought about the greatest change of them all.
Alright, you finished remodeling the ship, though sadly you didn't get to make anyone scrub the deck for days on end while you were at it; the members of the crew that were interested in doing this whole thing were the ones with an interest in this kind of thing to begin with, so they got themselves some copies of your own practical experiences and knowledge in the field of engineering way back when and digested them well enough by now.
Incidentally, that also involves a copy of your stringent approach to not fucking shit up unless necessary, complete with what to do in the general vicinity of any worksite (especially involving heavy tools or other machinery) and the basics on how to set these things up in a way that minimizes workplace accidents along the way.
While you don't really have the same issues as most people when it comes to being smashed by a running industrial engine that just got knocked loose or anything in that direction, you can say with some pride that you never have put yourself into a position like that, either. It's kind of interesting how that is copied along with the more 'dry' aspects of 'how to engineer' as recorded in the Necronomicon, actually.
An indicator as to the exact nature of the mental structures and memories being copied and pasted by it, too. Makes sense, really; it's not like any of your little minions actually have any memories of being you or anything, but what the book is doing fundamentally comes down to copying over things from one mind, in this case yours, into that of any subject or subjects it works on.
Naturally particular habits connected to a given 'skill package', if you will, that the original donor had get picked up and passed on when this method is used. As long as it doesn't lead to any personality bleedthrough afterwards, you aren't really about to complain, at any rate.
Now then, with that all done and out of the way, the next thing on your docket is… Meeting with your 'cultural ambassadors', you suppose. Or 'Priestesses' to use the local lingo, as it were.
Simply put, your intention for the two pretty women you managed to find by randomly looking through the Skypieans and Shandians, respectively, was to have them slowly work towards getting the people to produce Faith for you- a long-term investment into your newfound godhood that totally isn't just your latent megalomania talking, in essence.
Annoyingly, there's a few cultural issues in the way of actually doing so convincingly, of course, so it isn't like you can just casually tell them to make people think of you as a God and call it a day.
In the case of the Skypieans, they already know you're God. It's the title you took over from Enel and, as you've copiously bitched about before, the title of their head of government. Being the de facto dictator of a small country literally distant from most of the rest of the world isn't something you're gonna complain about, mind you, if anything it's another point on your personal to-do list you can cross off now, but it's not quite what you need from them.
Though you have been getting a small trickle of Faith from the people recently. It's kinda hard to really be sure, but from its 'taste', if you had to describe it, people legitimately are thankful you murdered your predecessor- and the guys he killed that you then pulled a literal mass resurrection on don't exactly hurt, either, a note from them and their families somewhere in the aftertaste of the stuff. Oh, and then there's the islands you went and fetched from downstairs, too, those also left an impression.
You know, if you just accept that your 'main' body, which doesn't actually have taste buds for the most part, can taste things like this.
Meanwhile, to the Shandians, the person called 'God' is no more and no less than their hated enemy. And, while you cleared up a lot of bad blood already so they don't hate your guts quite so much, the overall amount of awe, reverence or general worship-like thoughts and behavior directed at you on their part are mostly nonexistent as of the moment.
As such, your dedicated cultural ambassadors. Now, you don't want to pull any actual fascism levels of propaganda and misinformation campaigns, but hey, just saying, you wouldn't complain if anything like that happened.
More realistically, though, you're looking to slightly change the way your 'office' is seen by the inhabitants of the sky. Making Gan Fall do it like you make him do most of the administrative stuff for the time being would just feel like you're adding insult to injury, considering his own career path. He probably wouldn't even care, to be honest, but you have to pay attention to how this whole thing looks.
PR is a fickle bitch at times, so you gotta do this right.
"So what do you want us to do exactly?" Lakis half asks, half complains, sitting down at your meeting table together with yourself and Conis, her Skypiean counterpart, arms crossed. You see where Aisa gets her mannerisms from.
"What she means is, it is hard to find ways to change people's ways of thinking," Conis adds gently, rephrasing the question to be less confrontational. "I talked to a few islanders and asked them to give their thanks to God before eating lunch, but I, too, am unsure what else to do."
Clicking her tongue, Lakis looks away, jaw resting on her hand. Yup, she definitely didn't bother doing anything of the sort.
You know, when you envisioned your solution to this little deadlock of general perception you found yourself going up against, you figured you'd be putting a minimal amount of time and effort into some way to start pushing against it, give the people you're now lording over a bit of a reason to start thinking of you as more than just another foreign dude coming to rule over them by right of conquest and all that.
That wasn't really what the office of God was like before Enel- Gan Fall pretty much just half inherited it, half won it through a vague popularity contest that confirmed the people liked him enough to let him be the boss of them (you know he'd have just put someone else in charge if the populace decided they didn't like him, though that very much was more just him being himself than any formal procedure). Now, though, you've basically made it a thing; should someone defeat you, chances are the majority of Skypiea would just figure they can't resist them anyways and submit as a matter of course.
At least openly, anyways. Depending on who they are and what they'd do the people living around here likely would find their own ways to fight back, sooner or later. That's neither here nor there, though- you aren't about to be defeated by anyone or anything, so that entire theoretical scenario can stay theoretical far as you're concerned.
But back to changing public perception of yourself. Your solution, as it turns out, came down to visibly tearing down any signs of the previous regime (which, really, goes without saying and has been in progress already anyways) and replacing them with signs of your own. Nothing too overbearing or anything, you aren't about to put propaganda posters onto every wall to try and get some brainwashing in the hard way.
No, putting in an obvious and public reminder that you are there and nobody can stop you will be plenty enough for your purposes. You don't need to insist on awe and worship right away- people will get to that point all on their own in due time, you just have to give them a bit of a consistent nudge in the right direction.
So, statues. An ever-present reminder of your status and importance. You could've gone and pulled out your very professional Paint Fairies, grab a few brushes and make a painting instead, but a statue is easier to put into a public space and add obvious meaning and dimensions to, so it's kind of the obvious choice here.
You also went ahead and recruited Sarah to assist you in this endeavor, once you chose the right kind of stone from the planet's surface- stone being, much like soil and anything else normally found on the ground, pretty rare and downright exotic or luxurious up here in the sky.
Perhaps it was not the best idea to draw on your sister slash wife for help here. To be entirely fair to yourself, though, who'd have known she would have such… exacting specifications for the end product?
Luscious, soft locks of gold nuzzle against your chest as Sarah arcs her back on your lap, insistently holding up a pencil drawing she threw together during the planning phase of your cooperation here. Sighing softly, you take it, looking it over with a critical eye.
"From an artistic standpoint, I like it," you begin with a decidedly diplomatic approach. "That said, I am not sure about making it entirely naked."
Sarah went out of her way to add explicit notes regarding the angle of your ballsack compared to your (naturally erect) penis in her artistic vision, along with the definition and form of your abs she wants to ensure are shown properly.
"How else will you demonstrate your physical superiority and impose upon any that look at it?" She demands to know, eyes closing as she cuddles back against you.
"I was thinking of just using the pose and light angles, but I see your point," you soothe, one hand rubbing at her hip to calm her. "Still, I'm all for ignoring societal convention whenever the opportunity comes up, but… I would prefer to avoid throwing in nudity just for the heck of it, you know?"
"It has artistic value and is required in this case," your little Sarah insists, pouting up at you, half-turned from where she's lounging on your lap right now. "I do not accept compromise on this one, okay?"
Passively letting her rub her perfectly shaped ass against your lap, you silently smile at her, mind racing for arguments to get her convinced about this one.
Sadly, you never could tell your sister 'no'.
There's a few funny things about this whole inner world deal you've got going on, along with a few annoying ones; for some reason, you can't use magic inside of it, nor can you use most of your supernatural powers, from transforming your soul-projection of a body in any noticeable way or even accessing your enhanced and additional senses to, well, mostly everything else.
You still can talk to animals, though, communicating with the few animal souls you've consumed just fine, or use your weird micro-magical alchemy to create potions, transmute soul-matter and all that stuff. Similarly, though you have no idea how it works exactly, you absolutely can make use of things like Aura in here, projecting your soul across your body despite technically being inside your soul as it stands.
Or so you think, at least. Like, it's really hard to make any clear progress on figuring this shit out when there's so much contradictory crap going on, right? Not that the scientific method is really applicable in this situation or anything.
Seriously, you've tried to analyze your own blood under a variety of microscopes and any devices that can tell you about stuff, but you're halfway convinced you don't actually have any DNA anymore, or at least nothing like it shows up when tested… Until you don't expect it to, at which point a mad scramble of genetic materials shows up instead.
There's a reason you stopped bothering to figure yourself out a while ago, it goes without saying.
But yeah, Aura works in here, as does the new version of the same old thing with a fresh coat of paint. Haki, you mean. Both are really just using your soul outwardly, manifesting it in physical reality in some way, just that with Aura you let it coat yourself, your body protected by the characteristic film it produces, whereas Haki functions more along the lines of… enforcing yourself over other things, you suppose you'd call it.
When used in the form of Armament Haki, you literally make parts of your body- or your whole body, for that matter- harder, stronger, impossible to break as long as the strength of your will keeps on backing it sufficiently. It's not impossible to use raw, brute force to overcome it, it just takes more of it than the user's willpower can overcome, as it is the central crux upon which Haki usage rests.
Same for Mantra and whatever other unconsciousness-provoking application you've found using it, just in different ways, you're pretty sure. Honestly, the part about willpower and intent is probably the biggest difference between the two disciplines; with Aura, your soul is the primary impetus of what it does, to be influenced by your intent, whereas with Haki your intent does the heavy lifting supported by your soul, giving it that little push into becoming real and tangible that shouldn't be possible in the first place.
Good thing physics are more of a suggestion if you're sufficiently motivated, huh?
All of those thoughts and more are running through your head as you stand in the sands of the arena, the dry, steady, yet not quite oppressive heat of the desert surrounding the empty city surrounding this structure bearing down on you.
In this place, the souls you have consumed may demonstrate more of their powers than they would elsewhere, within yourself. The powers they had in life, any they gained after you consumed them, anything of the sort- the rooms below the arena itself, where gladiators are meant to prepare, even supply any simple equipment they may be familiar with before they emerge into the central, empty oval within which they may do glorious combat.
One against one or many, teams against each other, the audience jumping in at any point, anything goes as long as the one rule of this place is obeyed. Fight. Battle. Crush one another through any methods available, physically take whoever is facing you apart.
The arena cares for one thing and one thing only. It's also still impossible to die permanently, even within it, much like anywhere else in this realm, and it even restores you fully after you are done instead of leaving you to regather your missing parts by yourself.
You suppose there's a reason it's an oddly frequented place, all in all. Lung comes by occasionally. More often, two souls in particular can be found in and around it, when the more combative lesser ones aren't taking up space.
Whether it's luck on your part or not you aren't sure, but Conquest is elsewhere right now, probably off grumbling to himself about how the youth doesn't commit enough recreational planetary genocide for his tastes or something; instead, Battle Beast is facing you right now, his literally wolfish grin (or leonine maybe, but that expression doesn't flow as well and you really don't care what kind of furry abomination he is exactly) refuses to die down as he slams his heavy mace into you from all sides, it feels like, a ceaseless offense dedicated to battering you into oblivion, or at least pieces.
Stopping him from doing so is yourself blocking each and every strike, rather than getting the hell out of dodge and coming back with a vengeance as your might otherwise have. Your limbs are heavy with your Haki, Reinforcement pulsing through them as you make practical use of your ability to make them extremely hard and tough at will.
Looking the madman of an alien in the eyes, you open your mouth for the first time in ten minutes. "Slow," you complain, finally launching a counter that has your fist hammer into his chest from the front, in turn launching him straight into the abundance of sand kicked up in your fight so far. You think you felt it this time- you're getting close to pushing your Haki out of your fist as you punch, just like you know you can do with Aura as well.
The only response you receive is the deranged laughter of a crazed battle maniac rushing back, redoubling his efforts to murder you straight up.
Say what you will, but you absolutely do make it a point to be prepared for fights as best you can at all times. Constant combat like this works pretty well for that. And say about him what you will as well, but Battle Beast really is enthusiastic about what he loves.
He also may or may not tear off a few of your arms and legs as you go, but that's just the price of training, you tell yourself. Motherfucker's entirely too fast, strong and skilled by any standards, reasonable or otherwise.
Fucking ow. Good thing these kinds of minor issues resolve themselves just as quick in here as they do outside your inner dimension, you usually make it a point not to be hurt as much as possible for a reason.
Screw guys like BB, you really aren't a fan of fighting when it involves anyone that actually can be a danger to you. Sure, you'll happily endure incredible amounts of pain as necessary, but that's just it- if not necessary, you can only say 'no thank you' to the entire idea of being hurt.
You're a lover, not a fighter, dammit. You just so happen to refuse being defeated by anyone that might be a danger to yourself. Being strong is just how you ensure nobody can do so.
After having implemented most of the important changes you wanted to, you decided you may as well take it slow for a day, enjoy the sky for what it is, kill some time in a pleasant way… Well, that and recover a bit from putting up those statues.
You may not be able to feel true exhaustion the way a living person would, but damn if you aren't emotionally exhausted after pretending everything was perfectly normal while watching large stone versions of you be put up into public squares. You know. Ones that were posing heroically while completely naked with their hard dicks out, now shining in the sun for all to see.
Like, you don't really care all that much, to be entirely clear about this one. You just figured you'd do something normal for once and Sarah ended up vetoing that normalcy when it's usually the other way around. That and at least for the most part, you go out of your way to not actually be a degenerate in full view of the public at large, see?
Your sister, on the other hand, really just gives even less of a fuck than you do, which is pretty impressive in its own right (not that she's ever not impressive in any capacity, mind you). It was the same thing in that redneck hillbilly bible belt paradise of a flying city you visited briefly- long enough to destroy it, that is- as well, come to think of it.
Hmm… You know what, maybe you should talk to Sarah about her penchant for idle idolatry, what with the statues of you she likes to take charge of. On the other hand, is it really worth the bother when, at the end of the day, it usually works out alright for you regardless?
…Yeah, let's just leave it be. No need to poke that particular sleeping fox.
For now, you'll just go around doing some more morning practice (heh, as if you had enough of a daily schedule for something like that, you're just punching solid clouds apart using your Haki for fun in the morning) and-
Welling up from within yourself, a surge of strength overcomes you mid-punch, Haki vibrating out of control for just a moment. Like an erupting volcano, it surges throughout and out of you, following the path of your motions as you halt what you're doing.
A hole is punched into the Sea Clouds before you, forming a tunnel that leads down through this layer of the cloud formation Skypiea rests within, deep enough through the White-White Ocean you can see the White Ocean below, its own clouds roiling under the force of the impact of your strike.
Looking at your hand, balling it to a fist and loosening it back up, you sigh, shaking it out. "Today's just gonna be one of those days, huh?" You mutter to yourself. "I can fucking feel it already."
You know, it's a little strange, as these things tend to be, but it always surprises you just how quickly you can get used to even pretty exotic sights and places. Case in point, literally sailing the clouds and chilling in the skies was pretty new for a bit, but by now it really just feels like a completely normal tropical island with a long stretch of beach to you.
Not that you're not happy with that, mind you. It's not like a tropical island is a bad place to spend a vacation by any means. Just feels funny how fast your standards adjust.
Anyways, in the interest of said vacation, you decided you may as well have a little fun- though when aren't you, really?- and go around pushing through some community activities or something, some way to help your little campaign to make the people literally worship you proceed a little smoother.
There's the question of what kind of thing to actually do in practice, but that's details! You can always figure those out as you go. Instead of fussing over them, you proceed to let the idea germinate in the back of your head for a moment while dealing with the insides of your ship in the meantime.
For indeed, Aisa is once more awake, having slept in your room and all, and tried to sneak out your door once she regained the functionality of her brain. You let her, of course, no need to bother the girl until it's time to train or fuck again. At the same time, Robin (you think she wants you to call her Robin even outside the bedroom, anyways) is also back on her feet and pretending nothing in particular happened between you and her when she comes on to the deck, where you are idly looking out into the clouds while thinking, at the moment.
She doesn't say anything, but she does join you, quietly leaning against the railing next to yourself. The only thing in terms of communication that passes between her and yourself is a glance that tells you everything you need to know about what she thinks in regards to what happened between you.
The moment doesn't last long, of course, because Aisa quickly comes stomping in, hurriedly rushing towards the two of you straight out of the depths of the ship. Someone's using her Mantra to keep track of things, apparently, which you can only applaud of course.
Tromping up between you and Robin, the girl promptly crosses her arms, the way she usually does when she's discontent with something but unwilling to say it outright, and glares at both of you in turns.
Holding back the urge to chuckle at how she's behaving, you reach out with a grin on your face instead, mussing up her hair faster than she can dodge. "Anything you'd like us to know?"
"No!" She complains, pulling away- only for you to follow, keeping hot on her tail. "Stop it! And stop looking at Nico!"
"We're actually on a last name basis now. Right, Robin?" You smile over Aisa's head.
Aisa who, at hearing you and feeling out Robin's reaction, is quite alarmed, head shooting around to stare at her.
"No! I won't allow it! It's not permitted!"
"I am not sure what you are talking about," Robin smiles gently, looking away.
"Guuuu…!"
Happy fun times aboard the Grand Cruiser, huh? You dig it, you could spend every day like this if you weren't so preoccupied with your other goals for being in this dimension.
In the end, your options for your, you suppose you'd call it your overarching goal for the duration of your presence here, come down to a handful of ideas you juggle around a little as you poke Aisa's soft cheeks (they have a terrible tendency to inflate when she gets upset, so you have to push the air out- what if it gets stuck, after all?) and wander onto Angel Beach, leaving Robin behind on the ship.
She may or may not have decided to rest a bit while checking in with the other girls. You don't peek in on them more than absolutely necessary, partly because you're usually satisfied just feeling each other's emotions on a constant basis, only going into more depth if you actually have something to say or something interesting is going on, and partly to save what little sanity you have left at this point, but you think Sarah might be falling back into old habits.
That is, deciding on schedules and trying to leverage her position as your sister slash wife to get a little extra 'advantage' out of the arrangement she nags everyone else into agreeing. It was kind of an issue before, but it was ultimately dealt with when Kate and Sherrel put down some ground rules to make her back down just a little, way back when- and even now, they stand ready to step in if necessary, you note as you scan all your telepathic channels real quick.
Not that Robin particularly needs their help. She's woman enough to stand up for herself, well aware you basically fuck anyone on your ship that's up for it and perfectly able and willing to fight for her right to be fully included in that group.
Good on her, really. These kinds of things don't always go perfectly smoothly, but they usually end up being taken care of one way or another anyways. Like back when Taylor first properly joined the Crypts, lacked the confidence to assert herself and kind of stuck with Kate for a while until she got a better idea of how to make things work as part the ridiculousness that is your relationships.
You sure ain't interfering with things like this yourself, of course. When one of the girls tries to pull something on the others or needs a little 'boost', as it were. Way too easy to make it look like you're 'taking sides' or some shit- obviously not the case, and you naturally would step up if it was actually necessary, but if there's one thing you've learned in high school, it is that as a guy, you have to know when to speak up and when to stay quiet like a mouse and let women figure things out between themselves.
Otherwise, you just end up making yourself a target. Without achieving much of anything. Man, that one time in the girls' changing room was just terrible; you ended up screwing up and all the apology sex with all the girls (and two teachers) involved took you a month just to get through.
So yeah. You ain't touching things like that if the people involved can talk it out between each other just fine.
Realizing you've already walked all the way into the city, absently greeting back the citizens that wave with calls of 'God-Sama' here and there, you make your way into the place currently used as a 'Temple', aka government office, where Gan Fall does all your work for you. Carrying Aisa on your back seeing as she decided to impersonate a koala bear at some point, the doors don't particularly slow you down as you go on to meet the old man.
"Hey Gan, remember when I mentioned that idea about making an official holiday before?"
Looking up from where he's currently writing something down (the Skypiean systems of governance don't really do 'paperwork', something you can only agree with for all that it's a necessary evil when you're trying to organize things, right now the old man's just putting together a memo for later), Gan Fall, ex-god once removed and current Steward of the Sky- a fancy title is the least he deserves for doing all this work- smiles, his bushy mustache perking up as he does.
"Ah, yes, I had a survey board posted up in a few places so the citizens could add their own suggestions to the idea," he tells you, once more exemplifying why you trust him to act in your name; he's a genuinely good guy that goes out of his way for the sake of the people. Just like on Earth Rapture, where you prefer to put these exact kinds in charge of your secretly evil conspiracy company. "And what of the young miss?"
Quieting her steady, but insistent growling, Aisa stops trying to push her head into the back of yours, face poking over your shoulder. "He knows what he did and why he deserves to be punished!"
"I have no idea what she's talking about, I'm innocent and in no way deserve any punishment whatsoever," you immediately deny.
Efforts to drill a hole into your skull redouble as you helplessly shrug at Gan Fall. It's all a work in progress, you suppose. If anything, the durability of your head might work to get Aisa a little more motivated to become stronger, you suppose.
Anyways, you have a festival to perform. "Let's talk about what people thought of and what we can do for a start."
Setting up food stalls, as it turns out, is pretty easy. You just need to have someone ask around for people to run them and get the equipment needed for them ready, plus ingredients of course but you've got that covered as it is. Step one complete, you guess.
Thing is, food stalls do not make for a festival by themselves, it goes without saying, so that's just the start of what you need to get done. It absolutely would suck if it all ended up as just some awkward, half-assed affair that gets turned into a funny story two years down the line when everyone remembers that one time they all pretended to have fun just to placate you or something.
Is that a little too specific of you? Maybe. Doesn't mean you're any less right, though. Now, how do you get the people to enjoy themselves enough they'll make this a regular thing instead of the celebration of Enel's 'abdication-ing' falling to the wayside as a one-time affair?
…It's pretty simple, honestly. At least for the most part. Skypieans are, by and large, a pretty easygoing, happy-go-lucky kind of folk, just going with the flow and seeing the bright side of things whenever possible. That attitude of theirs did allow their oppressors to push them around pretty easily, but you can make use of it as well, if you do say so yourself.
Simply put, just give them an atmosphere to fit the occasion and they'll probably do the rest themselves. How do you do so? Well, leaning on the way Skypiean celebrations usually go can't go wrong, then you'll likely want ti spice it all up a little beyond the usual just to mark the occasion.
So in the end, you got all of the classics- the aforementioned food stalls, some stalls oddly reminiscent of those little games that seem widespread in what you know of specifically Japanese culture, goldfish scooping, that kind of thing, along with some other types, ring tossing, a whole bunch of different carnival game-like attractions where you're meant to use Dials to play, that kind of thing.
Also, can you just say that you absolutely applaud the creativity that goes into making players compete over setting points on a board on fire versus putting the fires out? The people here basically invented Mario Party before video games became a thing.
Then you also got the traditional music for these kinds of occasions… which is basically just a bunch of big, heavy instruments that are played by way of, you guessed it, more Dials. They absorb wind, then blow it through a carefully carved tube that has a few holes the players cover with their hands in turns as another sort of game. A rhythm game, if you will.
They're essentially oversized flutes that use Dials instead of a person's lung capacity, and pretty loud accordingly. They also have Sound Dials repeating the sound when the players get tired and take breaks, which strikes you as strangely hilarious, when you think about it.
They also got big drums and stuff, but no gongs of any sort. Probably because those would need to be made of metal to work best, and since that's kind of hard to get up here… Well, nobody ever thought of making those, you think. Too expensive in terms of materials.
While you were getting all of that set up, you also did think of more things to add, but sadly for all that you're really, really good at just being absurd and ridiculous in everything you do when you're motivated to, building a whole-ass cloud-based rollercoaster would've taken too long and been too in the way to be make it feasible for a festival you're organizing in the span of, like, two hours.
That's not to say the same is true for a ferris wheel, mind you. You can even drive it with Dials as well. Getting the proper materials and parts is a little bit of an issue until you fudge things a bit by spitting out your handy soul-manufactory for, like, twenty minutes, then have them assembled under your personal supervision real quick.
End result, the island of Skypiea now has a brand new addition to it, slowly rotating around taking people up and down. You didn't really expect the people would be all that impressed, seeing as they literally live in the clouds anyways, not to mention how easy it is to strap the right Cloud Dials to your feet and go flying a little, but as it turns out not everyone is a trained fighter that practices to actually do so, and even steering a Dial-driven vehicle across the cloudy sea is extremely difficult, never mind any theoretical alternatives that would fly themselves.
So… Yeah, people actually line up to take turns rising up into the air aboard your ferris wheel, for the novelty of it if nothing else. Of course, having built the thing yourself (along with most of the crew you could drum up on the fly), you're also taking a ride in this thing.
Just… How and why exactly did you end up riding together with Conis and Laki in particular, the two women now sitting opposite from you as you slowly move up in the direction of the sun?
You know, this might well be a pretty awkward situation, under other circumstances, with other people involved. Thankfully, you're, well, yourself, so you can manage to make your stay in this little cabin (or not-so-little, you built these things to be nice and roomy) pleasant enough just chatting as you poke at Laki to try and get her to open up a bit.
Conis, exemplifying the way Skypieans usually just go with the flow, happily chats along, of course, while her compatriot silently stares out the window, occasionally throwing a mild glare. She's still a tad pissed at you over spontaneously stealing Aisa, you think, but that's just something she'll have to deal with.
Honestly, the two are kind of a study in contrasts. There's the obvious differences in attitude, Conis being easygoing and flighty where Laki is grounded and grumbly at you, but even beyond that the Skypiean and Shandian women sitting in front of you right now really do kind of clash.
Conis is blonde, two antenna-like extrusions of hair ending in these little balls above her head (a weirdly popular hairstyle among Skypieans, the physics of which likely would make for a nobel prize if actually analyzed) where her counterpart's dark hair is tied back to fall down to her hips. Where Laki is either keeping her face blank or actively radiating displeasure whenever in your presence, the blonde is usually smiling and generally being fairly expressive, her eyes telling you everything about what she's thinking if you watch them carefully.
Open and closed, friendly and standoffish, with the flow and against it. A study in contrast, as you already noted. All the same, when The Thing (you need to put a trademark on that at some point, even if you're pretty sure it's too vague of an expression to be trademarked anyways) happens, it is at the hands of Conis in particular.
One of the many ways in which Skypieans are a lot more relaxed about life than people living down on the islands dotting the ocean, and people in general even in other dimensions? Well, they don't really share the concept of prudishness as such. So it's not too much of a surprise when the blonde brings up the statues, because of course everything happening here can be chalked up to being Sarah's fault if anyone asks.
"…and I was talking with Granda, one of the neighbors, about those big gold statues," the young woman in question says, happily chatting away after you gave her just the slightest bit of a push to do so. "She said they couldn't possibly be to scale, but I said that maybe it is, so she said guys aren't that big down there, but then I wondered if they're just bigger in the Blue Sea. So we asked the other neighbors, we ended up making some bets…"
"Let me guess, you want me to get my dick out so you can compare?" You ask, already seeing where this is going.
"It's for the sake of science!" Conis insists, fully serious about it, too.
"You can't just ask someone to do that, idiot," Laki complains, exasperated by her Skypiean counterpart's attitude- only to choke when you go right ahead and open up your pants. "W- what are you doing!"
"Proving the statues are on scale. Duh." Not like you're shy about this or anything.
For once, Laki is looking away with a blush on her cheeks, embarrassed, while Conis' eyes shine with anticipation. Naturally you aren't about to make them wait- there's just the teeny tiny issue of you being not particularly hard at the moment, of course.
"So, do you want me to awkwardly stare at you while I stroke it a bit, or did you have something in mind to get me hard?" You ask, eyebrow quirked.
"Oh, I always wanted to try this," Conis tells you, the blonde happily pushing herself off the cabin bench opposite yourself, kneeling on the carpeted floor of this thing. Once again you silently congratulate yourself on your design choices, by the way, despite how annoying this will be to keep clean in the future- not your problem either way, you suppose. "Here, let me see."
Smiling, the winged woman reaches out for your dick, gentle hands grasping it in short order. Wrapping her fingers around it, she gives it a few probing strokes, watching closely as you slowly grow hard.
And breathing in deep, all but sniffing up the scent of your cock. Clearly interested in investigating it more closely, Conis leans in, tongue slipping from her lips to give its tip an experimental lick. It's wet and warm and all those things you usually enjoy about this, though for the moment you don't do much else to encourage her beyond putting an encouraging hand on her head.
Looking back up, Laki is glancing at what's going on from the corner of her eyes, looking away when she sees you shifting focus to her. Chuckling, you leave her be for the moment, getting back to Conis just in time to see as she opens her mouth, snapping up the rapidly swelling head of your cock and letting it come to full hardness as she licks it from all sides, taking an inch, then two inside, her curious eyes never once staying closed for longer than a moment as she stares down your shaft.
Finally, having properly gotten you hard, she pulls back again, releasing your cock and sliding a hand across its length, distributing the layer of her saliva all over it. "Huh. I think… It's really this big, huh? What do you think, Laki?"
Leaning back to give the other woman a proper look at your manhood, all the response Conis gets is a squirming sound of denial she makes. "Don't involve me in your depravity."
"Oh, it's fine, isn't it? This is just natural stuff," the blonde protests, one hand still holding onto the base of your dick. "See? Our God is a gentleman, he'll only ravish us if we enthusiastically consent to it."
Weird kink, but alright, sure, you'll take it. "Oh? Should I take that as an invitation?" You ask, smiling slyly at her.
Hands shifting to her thighs, Conis smiles back as she gets up and turns around, pulling her skirt upwards to give you a nice, good look at the angel booty- and she does have a cute butt, you'll happily add- before planting it squarely on your lap, impaling herself on your cock in one fell swoop.
She's tight, is the first thing that comes to mind. Tight and hot, and by the time her cheeks meet your lap she's plenty wet as well, moisture dribbling down onto your balls and your seat in equal measure. Twitching, panting, generous chest rising and falling, she spreads her legs a little, making a show of how she's taking you in- for Laki, that is, the Shandian woman now so stunned by your sheer nerve in doing this right in front of her she doesn't even pretend not to look anymore.
Well then. You probably shouldn't note how you fucked Aisa in this exact position, too- you get the feeling Laki's the type to get offended about some part of that equation. Instead, you reach up and under Conis' clothes, confirming that she doesn't wear a bra of any kind, and her tits are exactly as soft and sensitive as you were thinking they'd be.
"Hey, you lucid enough to talk?" You ask when she doesn't do anything afterwards, her open mouth trying to close once or twice but not quite managing clear enough of an answer to you. "Ah well. Guess we have a little time, so let's see how log it takes for you to go unconscious so Laki has to take your place."
"I would never!" The woman in question insists, back to glaring at you despite the massive blush covering her face.
As a matter of fact, she would and she does, once a panting, overheated mess of a Skypiean is reduced to limply trying to make out with her until she does. Not that it stops Conis from getting what she wants anyways.
Girl is damn thirsty, and you know what, you appreciate that. It's a little like finding a like-minded individual from your hometown while you're on vacation.
In the end, you go three rounds on the ferris wheel, mostly just for good measure; by the second time you get back down to ground level Conis is somewhat recovered again just around the same time you put Laki in what amounts to the usual pleasure-induced coma, so you feel you should make sure the lights are turned off on her account as well before you leave.
Which you do. Incidentally, Conis' nipples are really sensitive, she comes pretty quickly when you play with them, whereas Laki is a bit more nuanced- but she kind of goes wild when you kiss her just right, especially if you also happen to be massaging her butt at the same time.
Just things you're noting for later reference, it goes without saying. Also, smuggling the two unconscious girls out of the cabin by the time you're done takes a little doing, but with a little elbow grease, imagination and a distraction you have Taylor stage on the fly you manage just fine in the end.
Y'know, business as usual. Honestly, it actually feels like it's been too long since you had someone pull a maneuver like this while you were sneaking around. Bright side, it looks like the fireworks were a hit, so they'll probably be a regular thing for the festival held during Final Coronation Day.
Once you supply the right Dials, anyways. Good thing you kept some of the failures of your genetic experimentation around, you never know when these kinds of things come in handy after all.
No, you do not have a hoarding issue, you just make it a point to find use for things that don't currently have one at some point. Totally different thing.
Anyways, you've decided you probably should go ahead and let the two of them recover somewhere discrete- that is, aboard your ship, naturally- so you carry them to the Grand Cruiser before you go on to reevaluate your next step.
Simply put, you kind of feel like you've been busy enough for the day already. Organizing a festival from scratch, building a ferris wheel, inventing the paperwork to make this holiday a permanent fixture you then filled out to ensure it sticks, screwing a couple girls while you were at it- you're due some of that good ol' relaxation after all of that, you think.
It's still day, so the sunlight is a bit of an issue for, like, all the other vampires you've got with you, but that just means you can make them hang out by the beach in the name of training their resistance. Not to mention the rest of the crew- you're sure they'd be all up for just messing around in the sand.
People are kind of simple like that, when you get right down to the bottom of things. Give them fine particulates to play with and they'll make their own entertainment more often than not.
'And though the evildoer and the heathen are false and monstrous, the faithful shall not fear them, for their strength is that of the Lord. Their voices shall be heard, and so the righteous shall be the most monstrous of all, that the heathen and the false shall be oppressed in turn.'
Life was hard, out in the cold. For most of humanity, Global Cooling was kind of the end of the world, when resources dried up, food became impossible to find in many places and existing societies broke down as their governing structures lost the ability to supply the necessities of life.
In this kind of climate (pun intended, mind you), information travelled slowly, contact between surviving groups gathering for what safety they could find in numbers before numbers meant too much reliance on food and warmth that couldn't be found being slow and sporadic as it was, but even so some rumors still spread, here and there.
Most of them were about what few settlements defied the environment even now, or their inevitable demise as they grew too populous to sustain themselves in the span of weeks. Some, though, seemingly were exceptions.
The Shelter, as it was called by any that spoke of it, was a twisted tower of metal, the people inside it of either ill repute or sterling reputation, depending on whom you asked. Talk was, they abducted people and drugged them up, somehow, to use for labor, or that they were some blasphemous sorts that prayed to old pagan deities just to get a rise out of proper, god-fearing folk.
Others, on the other hand, would just shrug and say they were strange, or maybe eccentric, rather, but they took in anyone that knocked on their door and they grew some weird plants that were enough to keep them all fed. All this despite the lack of a Generator or any other source of warmth to rely on.
Either way, for many in the general area it was as good a bet as any. Of course, being a new arrival to the Shelter, whether one suspected its inhabitants of being reprobates or not, was a… unique experience in itself, but by and large, few had the nerve to complain about their treatment.
That was, anyone that had complaints that weren't eminently reasonable was told, in no uncertain terms, to shut and eat their mashed depthfruit.
As long as you worked, you were fed, and there always was work to be done. They didn't faff around about the source of the rumors about the place either- nobody went out of their way to talk about the undead laborers or the half-hidden Sanctuary down in the depths, but neither did they hide these things all that much. If someone asked, chances were someone would shrug and explain what little they knew.
The Sanctuary was a room filled with darkness, unless you were 'in on it'. It was deep down, in the underground areas dug out by the tireless work to expand the Shelter, and some said it changed location of its own accord sometimes, the entrance appearing and disappearing without anyone noticing.
In there, the dead were raised again through some manner of unspeakable rituals known only to the ones allowed inside. That group was exclusive, though not terribly so- you did need someone already among it to vouch for you first, because apparently giving a bunch of strangers free reign to run around a religious site of fundamental importance to the survival of this settlement wasn't the smartest thing to do.
Which… made sense. If you disagreed, nobody cared, so that didn't go anywhere all that fast.
That said, another site of worship was being worked on already, set closer to the surface; as you came down the stairs beneath the surface. It was surprisingly wide, with these large pews made of bare stone, and a half-finished church window of colorful glass illuminated by light that shone down a shaft further up the Shelter's exterior- except it was lit up even at night, too.
Sometimes they held these little sermons, there, and plenty of people liked to attend. Didn't hurt the woman that held them was smokin' hot, of course, a welcome difference from the freezing temperatures outside.
She also wore… an interesting interpretation of the concept of clothing. Unsurprisingly, the men appreciated it, but so did an actually surprising number of women. And when she spoke, it was like the moon looked in on them all, and the snow and the cold wasn't as bothersome for just a moment or two.
In a very real way, she saved the people that listened to her. Salvation was kind of a theme in her sermons, so that tracked, too.
'Course, there were some complaints about her exact state of dress, but as always, nobody really cared. The Shelter was as kind in some ways as it was uncaring in others, an oddly nuanced and accurate reflection of the being this particular mode of worship was based on.
But that was something everyone involved would find out on their own in time. For now, the place was growing, more refugees trundling in day by day, and small expeditions were sent from it in turn, combing through all directions people might have moved through at some point.
Why did they do so? Well, growing the Shelter upwards and out, as they were, required skilled laborers that could handle the distorting metal that was now forged beneath the earth (some called it 'alchemy', most just called it really advanced science they simply didn't know much about themselves), but they were still digging deeper, excavating more and more earth as they went, so the demand for undead labor was ever-growing as it was, whether to do the digging itself, carry the rocks and soil out or toil in the mine of coal they had built as well.
One thing was for sure, however. The Shelter was growing, an increasingly imposing, spiteful act of architecture rising into the sky bit by bit. And inside it, survivors gathered, slowly introduced to the worship of this new age they had been thrust into.
'I am your Lord. Your God. Those that are evil shall not be punished by me, nor shall the good be rewarded, for good and evil are human concept, and by human hands shall they be judged.'
'It is by His grace that impermanence becomes permanence, the fleeting turns true. So, too, shall we strive to create that which outlasts us, to grant permanence to that which we touch, to prepare the world for our passing. For it is in passing to Him that we become eternal, and are reborn in His touch.'
'All that is must know its end in time. But it is in knowing that one understands, and in understanding that one overcomes. In the grace of the Lord, His Breath shall undo all ends, for He is that which knows the end forevermore. Know, thus, to invoke His Breath…'
Excerpts from the Book of the Dead, Revised Edition
Lying around on a sunny beach might not exactly be the kind of activity vampires generally enjoy partaking- there's a reason you usually do those beach barbecues and luaus on your private beach over on the West Coast by night, simply to take everyone's comfort into consideration and all that.
What can you say, you just make it a point to create a pleasant, productive working environment. If that means accommodating a severe case of sun allergy in half your friends and subordinates, that's just how you do things.
But right now, you're already cruising around the literal sky and there's not much else to do, so dragging the others along on to the beach during daytime under the guise of 'training' to resist the sun is fair game far as you're concerned. Also, Angel Beach is really quite pretty around this time, with the clouds slowly drifting apart to offer a view of the clear skies before the setting sun tints them a heady golden color.
Well, as for Taylor herself, she went ahead and made herself a black bikini to match her hair, its top decorated with white spiderweb patterns- fitting considering it was spun out of silk, really. You'd say something about it not covering much, but then, none of the other girls look all that different in that regard.
Being a bit quiet as per her usual, she went and grabbed herself one of the books she's picked up at some point in this dimension to read at the beach when you got everyone to come, so now she's just lounging under the shade of a beach parasol as she reads it, a pair of sunglasses balanced precariously on her nose to help with the glare of the sun in her eyes at least a little bit.
Her long, curly hair partially squished under her back, she's looking awfully comfortable like this, though you can't help but notice her breasts being a tad larger than usual, pushing her top out of position a little. If you had to guess, she saw Sarah, Kate and Sherrel and decided to quietly adjust her size upwards just a little.
"Hey beautiful, you come here often?" You tease her, coming up from behind, the sand not so much as shifting under your feet.
"Maybe, maybe not. What's it to you?" She plays along, looking at you over her shoulder.
"Hey, maybe I just want to ask for your name," you smile, slowly stretching out a hand towards her side, then stroking through her hair- gotta let her know what you're doing, and be gentle with it besides. A girl's hair is important.
"Mhm…" Letting you comb your fingers through her locks, Taylor shimmies in place, going back to reading. "Not sure I should tell you."
"Do I look that untrustworthy?" Grinning, you adjust your position, carefully pushing through her hair to grab both of her shoulders. "Maybe I can bribe you for it?"
"Calling it a bribe isn't exactly- ah." One of the good things about vampires, they don't develop these knots in their musculature, no tenseness that leads to pain, discomfort and more serious health complications if persistent. That also means you don't need to work her loose first, you can just dig your digits straight into her flesh, velvet skin soft and pliant under your touch. "That feels good."
"I'd hope so, I don't constantly work on my technique for nothing." Massaging is a bit like sex, in that you're touching someone for the sake of pleasure. Well, professionals may beg to differ, but far as you're concerned it's close enough- and you certainly do touch the girls to pleasure them all the time anyways.
And yourself, but honestly, if anyone needs the concept of sex explained to them, you don't really feel the need to bother, personally. Unless they're cute, in which case all bets are off, naturally.
Anyways, massaging Taylor's shoulders. They're pretty slim, downright cute even, despite the strength you know she can put out on a whim. Rolling your fingers, you likewise squeeze and rub hard enough most stones would be crushed under your attentions, though for her it's just quite pleasant, evident by the way she's closing her eyes and leaning into your touch.
Digging your thumbs into her back, along the edges of her shoulder blades and then under them to get at the soft tissues there, you really put everything you have into thoroughly working over Taylor's shoulders, making your way towards her neck when you've decided she's had enough of that, both thumbs pressing circles into the sides of her spine for a bit before you go back down.
She's positively purring before long, melting into your touch and not even bothering to keep the book held up. Satisfied with your work, you nod, reaching across her shoulders to stretch your sticky fingers all the down to her tits- which, it goes without saying, also need their share of massaging before you're done here.
Let's just say Taylor enjoys that one just as much as the shoulder massage. Also, her tilting her head backwards and pulling you down by your chin to make out in this position is very cute.
It is now night
Progress is going smoothly. You might have to adjust your timetable forwards at this rate of Faith collection.
One of the fun things about your particular brand of design philosophy is that, with everything being grossly over-engineered and all, is that adjusting the things to built to other or similar tasks as their original ones is pretty easy, by and large.
Well, that and the modularity you prize in your designs, but that's a whole story of its own you don't really need to get into. Suffice it to say, you can pull some shit.
Which is why it is atop the deck of the Grand Cruiser that you once again set out from Skypiea, intent on checking something out real quick. Now, you've already more than proven your ship can sail on and under water, soar through hurricanes and even rise into the sky- not under its own power necessarily, you did the heavy lifting there with your gravity control, but the point stands.
What other, new, more extreme environment can you take your personal vehicle of choice (in this dimension) into, then, you may ask. And as it just so happens, there's an obvious answer, now that you're already drifting through the sky inside a massive cumulonimbus system.
That's right, you're going even higher. Into space. Because that's clearly the obvious and natural thing to do after you've conquered in-atmosphere flight.
Thanks to the automatically deployed 'bubble' of air around the Grand Cruiser (technically it's more of a curse-thingy that prevents air from moving away past a given distance, using it both to facilitate those good old 'breathing' habits some people can't seem to drop and as insulation against extreme heat and cold, at least to an extent) half your work in making it space-worthy is already done as is, the rest is all in installing a few doodads and thingamajigs to help out with navigation and, y'know, the thrust necessary to move through empty space.
Again, the Plasma Dials are already in place, you'll just have to switch to using them as the primary means of acceleration for a bit. Combined with some strategically applied weight manipulation, some protection against radiation- you played with the thought of using Enel's body as an undead you'd install as the figurehead at the front of the ship, but decided to go with something less… aggressively obvious than that, in the end- and some other odds and ends, you've got everything ready in surprisingly little time.
No, really, you know your standards are kind of insane, but you didn't exactly expect to take less than two hours to adjust the Grand Cruiser to sail through space.
As for the reason you are going there, aside from the sheer heck of it just to prove you can, is to see about the moon. The moon Enel purports his people originally came from, something both his own memories and those of the other Birkans you are confirm.
As in, their mythology involved their ancestors coming from the moon. It's a good enough reason for you to ho and take a look at the place, see if you can't find any past signs of civilization.
Look, you've seen people literally living on half-solid, half-liquid clouds, the moon's not actually all that weird of a place for someone to have lived either at this point. This dimension's just that kind of crazy.
So you go a-cruising, a handful of Dials ready in case you actually find anything- it goes without saying that you'll take pictures, after all.
"What are you even doing here?" Aisa sharply questions your special guests for this flight, arms crossed as you might expect, glaring up at Conis and Laki, the two having just woken up and come out of your room earlier.
"What you ask…" Smiling in mild confusion, Conis glances up at the night sky- and the moon you are steadily nearing, having timed things appropriately so you wouldn't waste too much time in transit. "When we woke up, we found out we were going somewhere already, so…"
Laki, for her part, doesn't say anything, casually wandering off to avoid Aisa for once.
"I know why you were on board. You… danced… with him, didn't you!" Pointing an accusing finger at you, the girl in question glares even harder, and if this was a comic book or something she'd have just grown a couple sizes to look down at everyone present as she scolds them. "I felt it!"
Laki twitches, a look of alarm slowly spreading across her face.
"Oh yes, we had a lot of-" Conis' words are stopped by Laki's hand as it snaps out to shut her up, not that the Skypiean stops talking; she's just muffled regardless.
"Don't. Not another word."
Arms still crossed, glare still intact, Aisa moves closer and closer towards her. "I know what you did," she hisses, very much not about to drop the topic.
Sounds like the journey to the moon itself will be entertaining, if nothing else. Just as long as you manage to avoid notice yourself in the heat of the moment.
The moon, as it so happens, is… precariously close to the planet you've been fucking around on all this time, looking at it with the benefit of literally being able to go there pretty damn quickly, all in all. You kind of realized as much when you applied some simple maths to estimate its size and compared that to how quickly it moved relative to your position on the surface (well, you had the science team of dead people you ate at some point do it, same difference), but still, you didn't expect to take, like, two or three hours at plasma-driven cruising speed.
But still, here you are, having arrived on the lit side of the moon with little trouble overall. The Grand Cruiser reorients itself to its gravitational pull as soon as you let go of it yourself, having been positioned accordingly early on, and so when you set down you do it with the gentle touch of someone that doesn't give a fuck about a little bit of a drop.
That is, half the crew (the half of them that's out on deck) and Aisa cry out in alarm as it happens and they may or may not be juggled around a bit, but you catch the shrimp before she hits her head anywhere, so really, no harm done, right? Not like most of the others have many brain cells they're risking in that regard.
Robin, for her part, just stretches out an additional pair of arms out of her hands, anchoring herself in place, and if any of your vamps had any serious issue with going through a minor fall like this you'd be seriously worried about them. Of course Sarah ends up 'coincidentally' landing in your arm not filled out by Aisa right now, but that's just par for the course, really.
"You know, I'd make a joke about angels falling from the sky, but we're kind of going in the wrong direction for that," you note, voice dry, before you kiss both of them- on the lips for Sarah, top of the head for Aisa.
Ignoring the resulting pouting, because the former wants more than one kiss and the latter is in that phase where girls want to monopolize their crushes, you turn to behold the world beyond the bounds of your ship. And what you see is…
Well, mostly just a bunch of rocks. Bleached pale and scattered across the barren landscape, the surface of the moon is about as desolate as it gets. If there ever were any people here, you can't exactly see any signs- but then, you didn't really expect it to be quite that easy.
"Alright, normally I'd go and do a quick survey of the area, buuut~ that sounds like a pain in the ass and too much effort to bother with. Especially when we already had plenty of time to look all over the planet on the way," you say, half to yourself, half to everyone present. "So there's a couple of suspicious spots around. Also, is it just me or does the moon have an atmosphere?"
"…How would you even tell outside the ship's bubble?" Sarah asks, talk about esoteric things like 'atmospheres' or 'air composition' summarily lost on the other current occupant of your arms.
"It automatically lets air through if it's breathable, so since it's smelling different ever since we landed…" You shrug. "You don't smell anything?"
"No. If you're sure, you go out and test it for yourself."
It takes some work to put both your pieces of (lovely, you'd assure anyone that asked) luggage down, seeing as neither of them wants to let go exactly, but before long you do just that. And, yes, the moon does in fact have an atmosphere, that is breathable even. Kind of dusty, but, yeah, there absolutely could be some truth in those old myths.
To be honest, you're kind of surprised about that at this point, but hey, all the better. You'll still pocket a bunch of moon stones for later use as per your original main reason to come, seeing as your alchemical experimentation can be a little weird about stuff like that and actually work better with rocks that are specifically from a given planet's moon.
You won't even pretend to understand the intricacies there, as long as it works.
In some ways, being in space is very similar to being at the bottom of the ocean. The quiet, the solitude, the relative darkness, even, though that one really can be a bit of a wild card- not like it was all that dark in the lights of Rapture, back when you made your way through the city, and even now the moon reflects plenty of sunshine, enough for it be eminently noticeable by yours truly.
Of course being on this moon in particular doesn't really let you draw many comparisons, seeing as it has an atmosphere, which allows for sound to travel normally and all. As it stands, you're pretty much just sailing the Grand Cruiser across the planet's surface, closing in on the approximate area you suspect to be of interest- that is, that the Thinker told you to look into when you hit her up.
It's not like you're gonna go and become an expert on planetary geography by looking at the moon all night or anything. There's plenty of more important (and interesting, and fun) things you can spend your time on. Yeah, leaving it to someone that can easily analyze the moon's surface from afar absolutely is for the best, far as you're concerned.
Of course once you arrive, there's still the issue of literal tons of rock standing between you and whatever hypothetical find there is to be made underneath it. Luckily, there's this handy little trick you have where you just take weight and make it do the opposite of what it should- long story short, you just tear everything in your way out of said way by making it clump up and 'fall' away up and to the sides, effectively digging a very large hole using the power of your mind.
Truly the final form of human evolution, right there. Diggy diggy hole taken to the next level and all that.
What you end up unearthing, of course, is… actually a little surprising, truth be told, despite your earlier decision to just shrug and accept that this dimension is just a little insane. Peeling back the hard, craggy layer across the surface, you do much the same to the equally dry soil below, wondering if there really is anything below it.
And, well, there is. It takes you a hot moment or two, as you're working slowly and gently just in case, but before long you begin to see something other than tightly packed earth pulling apart under its own weight; the construction and make are different from any machines you've ever seen, but you're fairly certain you make out a couple of cogwheels, a massive steering wheel of some sort encased in a layer of steel and loads upon loads of miscellaneous bits and pieces- nothing you can identify at a glance, but very clearly indicating some kind of industral society, given the trash you dig up consists of plenty of boxy, metallic objects, with differently sized holes, sockets and more all over them.
"Well bugger me sideways, guess there really was something hidden up here," you comment at the sight, focus shifting towards carefully preserving these freshly secured artefacts. "Doesn't look like a random dump either- there's something interesting coming up next."
Or at least you can sense a hollow space hidden beneath the old rock. Good enough of a hint for you.
"I hadn't expected we'd find anything like this," Robin breathes when you finally unearth a massive cavern hiding what looks like a city as ancient as it is massive, stone carved into intricate geometrical patterns all across the many surfaces now becoming visible.
"Yup, definitely worth a closer look. Who knows, maybe we'll find something important."
Your search of this stupidly old place does fairly quickly produce a few fairly interesting insights. For one, while this place is very, very old, it's remarkably well-preserved, with very few parts of the city showing any noticeable damage past the outer areas.
Almost as though it was deliberately buried under the soil and rock of the moon to protect it, as a matter of fact. Why someone would resort to such a solution you aren't quite sure, but chances are it's connected to the myths of the Birkans leaving this exact place to go bum out in the planet's atmosphere at some point for whatever reason.
Secondly, these people actually had access to electricity! Which… isn't all that out there, all told, but it's interesting to find out they used what would be considered advanced technology in this dimension even way back when. Kind of paints a picture, considering most islands don't have anything of the sort in the current day and age.
In any case, you find several electrical conduits inside the walls, and even inside large pipes that seemingly served only to house masses of said conduits, isolating them while keeping them accessible at the same time. Following a few of said conduits, you eventually come upon the kind of sight that makes the supervillain inside yourself sit up and pay attention.
Inside what look an awful lot like charging ports, short, humanoid figures line mile after mile of what appears to be some kind of subterranean maintenance facility, reaching around to your thighs in height. Helmet-like protective layers at the top of their heads, some kind of little beard hangs down from their noses and over their mouths. That aside, they do look oddly human- with the exception, perhaps, of the little wings on their backs, poking out of the plain white robes they wear.
You aren't exactly sure how many of them there are, but you wouldn't be surprised if you were looking at tens of thousands of them. Here they rest, left behind by their creators, entirely motionless.
Poking at the helmet of one of them, you pull on Yoshi's power to confirm something real quick. "…Pretty sure they're all just out of juice," you nod once the analysis is done, looking back at the expansive industrial infrastructure surrounding you right now, pipes and wires running every which way inside the underground facility. There's even a glass pipe seemingly serving purely to let you confirm that there's no charge running through the system right now, you think. "Should we jumpstart these little guys and find out if they still work?"
Robin, having accompanied you on your little exploration tour on account of this kind of thing (ancient, lost cities, forgotten civilizations, that kinda stuff) being kind of her jam, slowly nods her head, taking everything in as she jots down notes and sketches of what she's seeing. "This place is much older than the Void Century, but I think I would still like to see as much about it as I can."
So, fun fact, the little robots that were built up here on the moon? They speak the same language as anyone else back on the planet you came from, which in itself is kind of a huge discovery. Little to no lingual drift, communication is pretty easily accomplished.
Which is good, because they do have plenty of stuff to tell you.
When you first send a surge of electricity through the city's power lines, a dim glow begins to shine throughout it, lamps that seem to indicate the state of its facilities coming to life. That said, that's all that happens at first.
So you just shrugged and went more or less full blast. Which, as it so happened, was exactly what the systems they built around here were built for, easily absorbing a heavy increase in voltage and filling up some batteries somewhere.
In response, the little bots all came awake at once, opening they eyes and swarming around you within moments. They weren't attacking, so you just watched them, and when they singled out a spokesperson amongst them you just got talking from there.
Turns out they're all operating independently, and fully sapient too for that matter. More importantly, they were indeed built by the winged people that used to live here on the moon, once upon a time, to maintain and defend their great city.
Said city's name? Birka. Yup, that more or less settles that particular question. Inside yourself, you can feel Enel shouting about how the moon is 'his', but as with most dead people, his opinion has very little weight as far as you're concerned.
The little robots even lead you to some ancient drawings on the stone in a particular part of the city, made by them to detail their own history after their creators left and before they went into standby mode for lack of power. They're kind of like Egyptian drawings in terms of style, showing everything kind of 'from the side', but hey, you've seen worse art generated by AI.
To sum the whole story up, they were created by the original Birkans and lived in harmony with their creators for a long time, until dwindling resources forced said creators to descend towards the planet this moon is orbiting- it simply became impossible to keep the lights on, so to say, as they ran out of fuel. The barren nature of the moon's kind of an issue in that regard, apparently.
They couldn't bring their robots along because they were, simply put, too heavy to float across on the balloons the Birkans used. Not, like, hot air balloons, they literally crossed, from the moon to the planet, by holding one helium balloon each and jumping.
Have you mentioned this dimension is insane already, by the by?
But yeah, that's the long and short of it. The bots had to shut down sometime after tearfully saying goodbye, having buried themselves inside their once proud city, only for you to come along and wake them back up using your Devil Fruit powers.
…And now Robin has taken a liking to them, too, carrying one of them with her just for the heck of it.
Birka doesn't have much in terms of valuables lying around, thanks to a mix of anything really important having been taken along when the original inhabitants left and good old decomposition, despite what the robots could do to prevent it from damaging things. That said, all of the really important infrastructure that still stands is, well, important- if not for yourself, then at least for the little guys you've found here.
In the sense that they need the charging ports inside the underground facility to charge up, even with ready access to all the electricity they could ever need. It's not actually terribly complicated technology though, so you let them know you can just rebuild it elsewhere easily enough.
Which is exactly what the plan is, by the by. There's not much use for these guys up here on the moon, so you figured you may as well take them along and have them live alongside the rest of your literally heavenly kingdom- you get the impression they'd be fine on their own, it's not like they need non-robot people around, but it'd be nice, you think.
There's just one issue, of course. Birka. The city, that is. That most of the robots don't want to leave behind on account of all their memories within it, their friendships with their creators and their ancient tasks to keep it safe.
In short, they're emotionally bound to this place, in a way that no amount of programming wizardry could manage despite them being artificial intelligence. Not particularly advanced ones, but perfectly capable of making their own decisions on a level identical to any other person's.
It's actually kinda interesting how they make decisions as a collective. You asked them, and it's a sort of bootleg democratic process going on behind the scenes as they can communicate extremely quickly between each other, each individual acting as a sort of signal repeater that allows them to 'discuss' and decide on things as long as enough of them are present in any given place.
But yeah, the city's too important for them to leave it behind, even discarding the practical and logistical issues that prevented them from going with their creators.
Lucky thing, then, that you've got some practice with transporting entire landmasses up and down the sky, right? This is really just the obvious next level of your previous island relocation efforts.
And so it comes that you return from your trip to the moon with a few bits and pieces of extra luggage in tow. "All aboard! If you're left behind at this point, you only have yourself to blame!"
The Grand Cruiser's plasma propulsion is warming up, ready to blast off into space. Behind it, the entirety of the city of Birka floats, drifting almost lazily, most of your concentration taken up by keeping it all in one piece.
If you're just transporting an island or two, it doesn't really matter if parts fall off, you can just catch them and make them stick to the main mass and all that, but you're carrying a bit more of a delicate load right now. It's actually really, really difficult to do this.
Not that that should be surprising, mind you. If anything, only having to concentrate heavily on something like this is proof of how far your mastery over your esper powers has come.
"Roger-roger, everything is ready!" Nodding, you confirm the masses of robots are all within the area you're carrying, ready for takeoff. Now you just need…
"Waaaiiiit!" There you are. "Captaaaiiin!"
"We're sorry! We got lost gathering geological data!" "He means we looked at cool rocks!" "I know what I said!" "Don't take off without uuuus!"
You look down onto the third of your crew that decided to ignore your warnings to stick close to the ship if they didn't want to explore the city without a single shred of emotion on your face, your ship hovering above the ground, engines slowly running hot.
""CAPTAAAIIIN!""
…You want to make them sweat a bit more, but it probably can't be helped, huh?
Returning to the site of Skypiea, which has moved a bit since you left it, of course, you quickly choose a nice spot to drop Old Birka off at- it had to be named as such to avoid confusion between it and the sky island of Birka that was ever-so-slightly obliterated by Enel. Only good practice to keep these things clear and easily understandable, after all.
The sight of thousands of bearded, short little robots jumping off the city as you lower it into its new location to go greet their new neighbors is kind of amusing, at least, as they move more like a stream of bodies than anything else. Beyond that, though, nothing too important happens while you work; the Shandians are on guard, but relax when the newcomers don't attack, while the Skypieans just shrug and consider the whole affair to be business as usual, more or less.
Honestly, good for them. These people's ability to just infinitely keep on rolling with the punches is something everyone should strive towards, really.
Properly anchoring Old Birka into place takes a little more effort than usual, as keeping it afloat next to Skypiea requires a bit of a foundation of more solid clouds to carry it properly, for fear of the White White Sea giving way beneath the islands' weight and dumping one of them down into the White Sea, or the Blue Sea even if its momentum proves too great.
It just takes a little finagling, at the end of the day. Good thing you're perfectly capable of doing a little multitasking when you need to.
So yeah, your little personal, privately run theocratic dictatorship in the sky has grown another little bit, complete with additional population already in place. And no longer than a few hours after they've started settled in, the little guys are all over the rest of Skypiea already, making friends and being weirdly adorable all on their own time.
…Also, you're feeling a noticeable increase in the amount of Faith you're gathering. How's that work out exactly? Are the people already there and present for your addition to the realm suitably impressed by your feat so they press out more believer-juice for you? Do the robots themselves produce it? What are the rules for worship produced by synthetic intelligence?
This calls for verification. You doubt it's gonna be this easy, but if you could swing it, just shitting out a couple large-scale server farms full of programs endlessly singing your praises (or repeating them in binary, whatever) to fuel your new form of reality manipulation would be… convenient.
You'll just put it on the docket for your secret underwater base for now, you suppose.
Having accidentally stumbled upon the remnants of a once great civilization and adopted its robot servants slash companions left behind for a couple thousand years plus, you've decided you should probably take it nice and slow for the rest of the day… For fear of what else you might accomplish through pure coincidence if you aren't careful.
Like, not to say that you think it likely you'll 'just so happen' to put yourself into the position of taking over this world if you don't pay attention to what you do, but honestly it wouldn't surprise you either at this point of your un-life. Also, taking over the world usually involves a lot of work and you had enough of making other people do that on Earth Rapture.
Not that you wouldn't do it if it came down to it, of course- if you say you'll go and become the World Government yourself, that's what you'll do. But until you do so, you'd best steer clear of doing anything that might just tempt fate.
'Cause fate's a fickle bitch that has it out for you sometimes, no matter how many times you put her in her place. Note to self, find some way to literally fuck fate into the ground, rather than just doing so figuratively. That sounds like a nice little project one of these days.
Anyways, you do all the necessary stuff that comes with adding Old Birka to your domain- poking into Gan's place to let him know what's up and letting the people involved do all the rest themselves- and then dipping right out of existence. Or, y'know, anywhere most of the citizens can see you.
Of course when you're just looking to go kill some time, there's always your old standby for situations like this; training yourself in the arts of being a hilariously lethal murder-machine, that is. You didn't get this far by slacking off, after all.
No, your strength and divinity were achieved through diligence, dedication and ridiculous amounts of murder. All built upon the fact you just so happened to be lucky enough to somehow rise from the grave as some kind of abomination against all good sense, but in contrast to most people in modern society your success isn't solely based on your origins, you'd like to think.
You may say so yourself, but you're smart, you're thorough about doing whatever job you put your heart into and you're good with people for the most part. Y'know, aside from the whole supernatural superpowers thing. Without your qualities as a person, your situation would've been very different all along.
But enough jerking yourself off over how undeniably awesome you can be on occasion, you have stuff to do! Which, in this case, involves some light exercise with trees the height of skyscrapers for weights and, after a little thought, consorting with the forces of hell.
Though in all fairness, putting it like that makes it sound like said forces were, well, organized in some way. Which some are, mind you, plenty of places in hell feature actual armies, semi-independent polities and tribal organizations banding together for one reason or another. Kind of inevitable when you have a pretty much infinite number of demons in an infinite amount of space- of course some of them will organize sooner or later, and if only under the command of particularly individually powerful demons.
That said, even more of them shun any such thing, which brings you straight to today's sort of customers. Many inhabitants of the vast layers of hell used to be human once upon a time, or some kind of sapient being with a soul, for all that just as many simply come into existence as a result of the spiritual quasi-matter of that particular realm of existence congealing and gaining sentience naturally, all by itself. Or more demons being born of those that are already there one way or another, for that matter.
All that said, some types of demon come to be through specific circumstances, rather than possibly originating through any of these 'standard' methods, and there's so many specifications and particular circumstances influencing the creation of demonkind you could sit there and learn about them all for centuries without being any closer to having a comprehensive understanding of it all.
However, some knowledge on specific kinds of demon is easier to find than others, so making use of what you can get by simply glancing over your demonic lawyer's dossiers on 'infernal locations, entities and polities of interest' is only natural far as you're concerned. Because yeah, of course you're keeping her busy with the occasional task like putting these together- she's profiting off your deals almost as much as you are yourself and you'd hate to disappoint a lady through sheer disregard of her needs, now would you?
But yes, back on topic. Much like demons such as Fireflies come to be exclusively from the souls of innocent children that one way or another wind up in hell for some time, plenty of other demons can be traced back to the souls of particular mortals sharing some particular characteristics. Case in point, the things known on some layers of hell as Wickermen.
A Wickerman is a giant demon, easily the size of buildings at a minimum, constructed from thick, cord-like strands of material. Each of these strands is said to be the soul of a particular mortal that, in life, committed certain acts such as serial murders, wartime killing of unresisting civilians and surrendering combatants, violence against pets and children, those kinds of things.
Their souls band together in a completely unconscious shared desire to torment and crush those weaker than themselves, weaving into enormous figures often crowned with branching horns or thorns. Generally humanoid overall, they fashion their own weapons out of suitable materials, primitive in make yet still murderously effective due to their size and leverage, more often than not.
Fully materialized Wickermen are literally driven by their shared purpose, producing an infernal glow with the strength of their sadistic impulses that often shines from gaps in their thread-like bodies, alongside their eyes. Hulking and often outwardly ungainly at first glance, parts of their bodies varying wildly between all but skeletal and oversized, they can produce a considerable amount of strength thanks to their particular anatomy, their every movement fast and precise.
They can weather a lot of damage and regenerate to an extent, though that's as far as their magical prowess usually goes. Very physical, very deadly.
While strong, they don't actually like to fight anyone in their own weight class, instead preferring to hide themselves in mountainous areas, amidst clouds and mist, to chase down and agonizingly mangle creatures vastly smaller and weaker than themselves, letting them 'escape' only to follow after them and repeat the process until they stop struggling, at which point they die just as pitifully as they were hunted down. If they were 'lucky' enough to stay mobile after the first attack, anyways.
It's just their mode of existence, in the same way other types of demons grow in strength by following their own natures. Of course they still can and will ferociously fight anyone that actually threatens them, they just don't seek those kinds of situations out themselves and actually consciously avoid them when possible.
Also, just to reiterate, they are fucking bonkers kind of huge. As you find out after summoning one using the blood of a child (Aisa didn't even notice the little poke of your claw and you healed it right up after), a little bit of Holy's fur and a mix of ominous chanting and plenty of elbow grease.
…Note to self, do demon summoning further away from your stuff from now on. This thing's feet are only half-materialized inside the circle you drew larger than usual, but even so it could reach Skypiea itself with a swing of its weapon.
Floating up in the air, somewhere around chest height of this guy you managed to drag up here, you clear your throat, knowing that the Wickerman won't be able to try and kill on instinct until the circle you drew to summon it is broken. Which is likely to happen sooner rather than later, seeing as it's a very temporary affair and entirely insufficient to keep something of this size and strength contained for long, but it gives you the time you need.
"Okay big guy, here's the deal," you say, launching straight to business with crossed arms, voice carrying forwards a little to make sure you're heard and understood. "You want to kill stuff. I, too, occasionally want to kill stuff. As you can see, there's some overlapping interests going on here."
The creature silently stares at you with its headlight eyes, their shine just bright enough to illuminate you as you leisurely hang in the air.
"I'm not gonna pretend this is some call to friendship or anything like that, but if you would like to support my cause of obliterating anyone that gets in my way with overwhelming violence, I would appreciate it. Not enough to give you anything in exchange, but I would," you hedge, raising one hand for a second as you speak.
Continuing to quietly stare, the Wickerman leans forward just a smidge, the movement minimal in itself, but with its size it is like an enormous tree just got torn halfway from the ground, threatening to fall onto you. It is impossible to ascertain whether this gesture is meant to be one of interest or an implicit threat.
"So it comes down to what you want to do, I guess," you conclude your argument. "You work by yourself, I figure you can do… however many victims you do normally. Throw your lot in with mine instead and you get to be part of any brutality I end up committing. It's not what I do all the time- but I deal with bigger fish than you do, in either quantity or quality. Kind of depends on the opportunity at hand, you know how it is."
Your counterpart in this 'conversation' raises its blade, trails of smoke rising up to mingle with the clouds above. Almost curiously, the demon shifts the weapon closer to you, as though to gauge your reaction.
For your part, you simply cock an eyebrow, entirely unmoved otherwise. The flat of the 'blade' nears you swiftly, the sheer scale of the sizes involved enough to throw off easy estimation of just how large it is, for all that it's pretty blunt. Not that the material looks like it would retain an edge even if it was sharpened, so that's probably just what you should expect.
Not like it needs to actually be sharp. With enough weight and speed it'll cut into things just fine as is, and at the end of the day… It's probably more painful to be hit by it this way anyways, which you imagine is the whole point.
When the stone actually touches you, the Wickerman halts… And rips it upwards, soul-cords tightening as it brings it back down with an executioner's chop. Unimpressed, you rotate in space to build up momentum, mind reaching out for the weapon whose weight has been heavily apparent in your gravity-ception until now.
When it hits you, it is not you that breaks. The demon's hand, grasping its weapon of choice tightly, goes all the way down, the 'blade' cracked apart right at the handle, your punch combined with the spontaneously redistributed weight of its entire length enough to destroy it entirely.
The slab of massive rock falls off to the side, until you reach out with one hand, making it gently float to a stop instead. The Wickerman you summoned looks… vaguely disappointed, you think, but before you can comment on what just happened it begins to unravel, compressing and falling apart at the same time, somehow, shrinking to a point.
At the end, you are left holding an essence that reminds you of a ball of twitching yarn, the soul-threads still visible across its surface as they move and rearrange themselves, trying to find a comfortable position both you and them know they'll never reach.
"Well," you sigh, "that's that I suppose?"
With the influx of additional Faith-juice thanks to… the robots, everyone else on account of you bringing in the robots, some kind of shift in whatever and however your collection of the stuff you use for your newest (and therefore shiniest) method of reality manipulation or maybe all of the above, you've had to adjust your schedule a little, insofar as you even have one; even once you've done everything you decided to stay in Skypiea for, there's nothing that forces you to move on or anything in the first place.
That said, you do like to have at least a rough idea of a plan when deciding on which of your options to pick in life, so some preparations for your inevitable departure hardly can go amiss. Which is why you were thinking, wandering around the further reaches of Angel Beach (it's a very nice landscape actually, with few people ever really around this area, definitely would recommend as a holiday destination), about the most important things you wanted to do in this dimension.
Like, separately from sailing kicking back in the breeze and having a good time, which is the kind of thing people should do more of in general, in your humble opinion. No, you're thinking of your to-do-list here, the stuff you really really want to get done or crap you want to steal before you bow out of this place for a bit.
…There's really only one thing that comes to mind there, of course. Haki is a pretty cool thing in concept, but it works a lot like Aura does and you have the distinct impression it can be learned anywhere now that you know how it works, at least in theory. Not easily, that is, what with it requiring some considerable and active usage of sheer willpower to do anything worth diddly squat, but you think you can let everyone pick up the basics just off your own experiences.
If they put in the effort, anyways. A far cry from the way Aura is unlocked, but then, Aura is just way too convenient as far as that goes. Really, it's a small miracle not everyone on Remnant runs around with it.
But yeah, there's something here you absolutely don't think you can find anywhere else, it's the convenience and weirdness of Devil Fruits. Like, you have no idea how they work, exactly, and even less of a clue on how to possibly replicate their effects- you can use ADAM to have a man piss lightning from his fingertips, sure, but turn into the stuff, like you do now? It's hard enough to make Plasmids and the like work properly without horrible, disfiguring mutations in 90% of test subjects as is even with the FEV mix you add to it.
Then you also have the examples of other fruits and their effects, by which point you're really just kind of scratching your head. Like, a certain fat robber baron took a fruit that let him emit little sparkles and turned it into a way to create illusions of himself, become a flashbang on demand and more. How do you even categorize that when it makes little to no sense on the face of it all?
Devil Fruits are powerful, can be developed to be extremely versatile and even more powerful in combat and you have no idea how to replicate their effects as such. In other words, the perfect target to chase after! Pick up a few wherever you can, then see about finding a use for them from there.
If nobody present wants a given fruit (looking at the Oil-Oil Fruit there), you can always just put it into shadow storage and find someone that makes for a decent match for it at some point. Or force-feed it to someone for the heck of it, if you're absolutely desperate to get something out of it.
Not that you're likely to, what with how damn rare and, consequently, valuable the things are. Which leads to the next point of your agenda, it goes without saying.
Where the fuck do you get yourself a couple souvenirs to take home with you once you leave Skypiea? The answer, of course, lies beyond you without any way to magically find out.
Oh, what's that, you do have a way to just magically figure shit like this out? Well ain't that just convenient.
"Okay, new question here," you decide aloud, talking to yourself as much as you are talking to… reality at large, you suppose. "Where can I find the nearest conveniently clustered Devil Fruits ready to be taken and potentially eaten?"
…
"A black market kinda of deal? Near a place called Water 7?"
That's probably your next best bet on this stuff, huh?
It is now night
Fun fact, there's a bunch of Light Dials installed all over the city, so it's actually kind of reminiscent of a modern place in that regard. The robots, too, are very touched by this- Old Birka used to be similar, before most of the lights had to be turned off to save energy.
They're already using Dials to build primitive generators now and produce their own electricity, starting with prototypes that involve Wind Dials running a turbine. You probably should go ahead and construct an Eldritch Core or two for them to use in case of emergencies later…
The swathes of Old Birka, being as literally old and, in parts, brittle as they may be, are both surprisingly enormous and filled with what might well be described as a whole-ass civilization's entire legacy, considering the old Birkans mainly lived in this one city, surprisingly.
Then again, calling it a city kind of undersells just how large the ruins are. Like, you didn't really take much more than them out of the moon, but the landmass you added to your sky-kingdom is easily as large as Skypiea itself used to be, before the other additions you made.
All that is to say that there's a lot of ruins appended to the other islands now. Said ruins date back further than the Void Century, which happens to be the main interest of Robin- the reason she went into archaeology being to try and find out what happened during this time a couple hundred years of local time ago- which, if anything, actually makes them even more interesting to look at.
Like, here you have this entire planet filled with isolated communities on their own giant-ass islands each, developing their own cultures and stuff but still more or less at a given level of technology. Smaller, less populous and important islands are stuck with rowboats and borderline medieval conditions, others a couple steps further, while others yet are basically at an industrial level of civilization, semi-independently from other places at that.
And then there's this ancient mega-city that had robot servitors and street lights and shit. Sure, they also lived on the moon and that's apparently completely normal and unremarkable, but still, the ways technology developed in this dimension are very weird, possibly concerning and if Curie was here, she'd be all over the prospect of finding out how and why things happened the way they did.
As it is, you still have Robin to explore the place with- just because she's more concerned with the Void Century doesn't mean she isn't interested in Birka as well, so the two of you get plenty of opportunity to stroll through the place.
Naturally you can't just leave her to explore the ruins on her own. What if she overlooks something you could easily notice on account of your better senses? No offense to her own experience with this kind of thing, of course. And while you're at it, for completely innocent and obvious reasons, you hold hands with her as you go, wandering through the ruins, stopping here and there to investigate the remnants of this civilization, poking and prodding and her taking notes as you go.
One thing leads to another from there as you keep up an easy, casual bit of chitchat here and there and before you know it, you're standing there punning Robin's back against a wall in what used to be someone's very nice living room a very long time ago, her clothes slipped away piece by piece just because you like looking at her properly.
Without things like that in the way, you mean. And if you in turn lost a bunch of clothing yourself, well, that's just a matter of reciprocity, ain't it?
With your position being what it is, you just smile as you kiss her, Robin's lips melting against yours, arms encircling your back. Her soft tits press against your chest, all the while your hands dig into her ass, kneading those soft cheeks, the head of your dick rubbing against her belly as you make out.
When you release your kiss, it is a short, breathy affair, the corners of Robin's lips curled into a small smile despite herself. "We shouldn't do this here, of all places," she points out, making no effort to push you away or otherwise stop what you're doing.
"Good thing we're pirates," you reply, bending to trail a few kisses up her neck before she can do anything. "Should doesn't matter. Only want."
Just like that, you're occupying her lips once again, your tongue darting forth to intertwine with hers. Neither of you bothers saying anything more until you pull back just a bit, just enough to let your cock poke, prod and-
Spreading Robin's pussy wide open around your cock is just as satisfying and heady as always, her moan muffled by your mouth. Not in too much of a hurry, you gently fuck your way deeper into her, thrusting just a little bit deeper than you pull back again and again, hands on her hips to help hold her steady and right where you want her.
It really is convenient to be roughly the same height, in moments like this. One of those things that piss Sarah off to no end when brought up, seeing as she's a head or two shorter than you on a good day.
Doesn't take long until you're properly fucking Robin now, one hand on her hip, one holding her hand, fingers entwined with one another. Dark hair falling over her shoulders, she's starting to look delightfully messy already, breathing and moaning without a semblance of control over herself, legs spread to let you fuck her properly, your balls slapping against her thighs a little.
She swallows hard when her free hand reaches out to clasp at your back, between your shoulder blades, nails digging into your skin. "I'm going to- ngh," she tries, biting her lips she can't bring out the words.
Understanding her well enough all the same, you speed up, making her ass slap against ancient stone. Robin hisses aloud when she comes, a sound that's just enough to convince you to give her a little treat instead of teasing her.
So when she starts to wind down, you pull her close, giving her a few long, determined thrusts- filling her out in her entirety, her legs twitching, eyes widening. Like a battering ram, you slam yourself home, now spewing white, hot cum straight into her depths, covering the entrance to her womb with your thick batter.
Timing every spurt with a thrust, you manage to reignite and prolong her peak as well, leaving Robin like putty in your hands by the time you're both all done, hair falling wildly, a sheen of sweat covering her skin.
Leaning in for another kiss, even as you hold her up, you decide to give her a moment to catch her breath. "I don't think… my legs work right now," she confesses after said moment has passed, smiling at you cutely in a way that absolutely contrasts with her usually more withdrawn self- and absolutely makes you want to keep messing her up like this.
"Can't have that now, can we?" You grin, holding her tighter. "Think doing what broke it again will fix it?"
"…How would we… Ah! Test it out…?" She breathes, hugging you tighter.
"As I always say, there's only one way to find out. Let's give it a few tries and see what happens."
In just one spot, Old Birka comes back to life this evening. You'd like to think its people would have appreciated it. Then again, they're all long dead, so their opinions only have so much weight anyways, eh?
If there was one thing you maybe should've expected, it was that somehow, Skypieans would manage to still be… themselves… even under considerably unexpected circumstances.
Such as, say, meeting the disembodied souls of their dead loved ones, conjured by your 'dark magic', as Kate suggested you market it to gain popularity with edgy teenagers and stuff. Or, for that matter, being brought forth from the afterlife to come see their still living loved ones.
"Fear me! For I am a ghooost!"
"Heso! Nice to see you, grandpa. Want some tea?"
"Call me ghostpa and we're in business."
Yep. Amongst Skypieans, your initiative to expand awareness of your phenomenal cosmic powers, as a way to elevate your station in their eyes, is met with a generally positive attitude overall… so much so that it would be what you'd call a great success if it weren't for how casually they're taking it overall.
"Gahaha! You better treat my granddaughter well, else I'll start haunting ya!"
Of course, you can't exactly discriminate about these things. As such, you did go ahead and summon the spirits of both Skypieans and Shandians, using their direct descendants as the links you need to fish up the right ones, which… really, the results were kind of obvious from the start, too.
Of course the ensuing chaos is half the reason you went through with it.
"Damn Skypiean sky-dogs! I'll show you what's for!"
"Shandia! Today I will settle this grudge of a lifetime!"
Yup. These people have been killing each other for generations, before Enel kind of threw all of that out the window temporarily, so naturally a ton of the spirits you summoned up died because the other guys killed them in battle. It goes without saying they'd be at each other's throats the moment they see each other.
"Aren't you going to stop them?" Conis asks, having approached you from the side as you preside over the occasion, the town square slowly devolving into shouting souls you summoned up and their descendants kind of awkwardly shuffling around as they try not to get involved right in front of you.
You can actually spot Wyper being lectured by his father or grandfather or something, judging by the similar hair and the cigarette in both of their mouths. Honestly, the resemblance between them is downright uncanny. Also, good on the guy for lecturing Wyper, guy needs to be reminded of his place every so often.
"Meh," you simply shrug, unconcerned. "They're dead, they can fight all they want. Let the living learn about how silly they were being firsthand."
Seeing as you make it a point to speak extra loud, the summoned spirits of Christmas Past hear you, of course, and what follows is a mix of them trying to posture against you and the smarter ones drawing a little further away to continue their feuding, as far as they can while remaining within the boundaries of the magic you're using.
Sighing, you lean back and settle in to wait. Having a slow night like this every once in a while isn't bad, either.
Old Birka already came with most of its own infrastructure straight out of the package, if a bit damaged in places- some by the ages passing while the city slept on the moon, some by the inevitable rigors of transportation (you tried to be gentle and mostly succeeded, but it turns out warping gravitation can have some pretty adverse effects on most structures, so some shit just broke on the way and had to be fixed up)- but by and large, the place is perfectly functional, assuming it has a source of energy to work off of.
Really, energy generation is the one big sticking point for it. Personally you can easily just pump some lightning through its power lines, of course, and a few Eldritch Cores should be able to run it all just fine as well. Still, it would be nice to have an independent, self-sustainable source of electricity for the little robots you can currently feel filling your reserves of worship-juice.
You did go around talking to a few of them, and as far as they're concerned you're basically a replacement for their creators to them, especially as you went around literally giving them new life, what with the electricity and all that. Which kind of brings up an interesting little something you've actually discussed with the Thinker before, in fact.
As an artificial intelligence or equivalent, the thought of one's own creator, the way gods are usually portrayed in mythology in relation to mankind, is a lot more real and also a lot less mythical when you literally know your creator, can communicate with them and all that.
Personally, you've always considered things like this a lot more like a parent and child, if a tad lopsided in some ways, but the principle of it is sound; if you've created a sapient being of any kind, you've basically assumed responsibility for its development and actions, to some extent, just like how you would for any other kid you had with a person of the same species as yourself.
Like, that just makes sense, don't it? Nobody gets a choice in being born- or otherwise created- so the least you should do as the person that caused someone to come into existence is to guide and raise them for a bit until they're fine on their own.
The specifics may differ a lot, but that's your viewpoint in a nutshell.
For her part, the Thinker partially agreed, but also pointed out the whole 'creator' thing in turn. She doesn't really have any big feelings on the topic, herself, but the parallel between a parent and a creator deity does have merit in a philosophical debate.
There's a reason actual church clerics are often addressed as 'father' by believers, after all, there's a very clear connection drawn on account of them standing in for the vague idea of a god Christianity is into. There's also a reason you don't usually bother with philosophy on principle, what with it being a waste of your time when you could do something actually useful, but hey, random conversations between you and your best friend AI are almost as meandering and random as your usual thinking.
Long story short, it does make some sort of sense why the moon-bots are boosting your Faith generation just by looking up to you. The thought behind it counts for a lot, you think, and their sheer numbers do the rest. Certainly useful either way.
It's also making you think of creating more life, robotic in nature or otherwise, to do your bidding and provide belief in yourself and all that, but that's probably more of a long term project in any case. Longer term than you'd be willing to invest for the time being.
After all, any children you create deserve better than to be an entirely casual affair on your part.
In the meantime, well, you've also got a horde of robots to take of, so you fiddled around with a few more of the Dial-producing shellfish while you were at it. The end result is pretty useful, insofar as they take in static electricity and put out stable electrical energy, easily absorbed into Old Birka's systems.
Like, you just have to rub the shells over cloth or through your hair a few times to get a charge. It's actually kind of frightening- you're pretty sure you're once again breaking the laws of physics over your knees with how much electricity can be produced through relatively minimal static charges built up with these things.
'Cept you didn't even mean to do so, or not any more than Dials do to begin with. Exactly how their whole absorption and release process of various things happens is still a mystery to you, too, so you probably should've seen that one coming, as well.
You know, when you decided to try and see how Sherrel's been doing, occasionally coming off the ship for a bit to do stuff on land before inevitably returning to 'safe territory' and all that, you hadn't really considered the possible outcomes of your actions. It was meant to be a quick bit of hanging out, maybe shooting the shit together a little, nothing more than that when you thought of it.
Of course, somehow, the two of you left to your own devices for any length of unsupervised time inevitably leads to a few ideas bouncing off of each other, almost before you even know it, and long story short you ended up doing an impromptu design session on an idea both of you could get behind.
Followed by some quick prototyping of the systems you envision. And then you put them together, naturally, to see if they work out, make a few adjustments, fix anything that needs it, do a little optimization once everything's stable…
Which pretty much sums up how you came to look at a half-dozen auxiliary ships for the Grand Cruiser made exclusively of self-shaping clouds. Complete with little lightning cannons built into them for armaments. Around a third of your 'real' ship's size each, they're light, driven by their own plasma drives, can be piloted by a single person if need be and they're fully flight-capable, even!
…The overall amount of additional, specialized equipment aboard each individual one had to be kept limited as Sherrel did some Tinker-wizardry so the clouds making up the things can be compressed into a much smaller amount of space, allowing you to just stow them with trivial ease, then pop 'em out on demand. It did add some design constraints, but to be honest, it hardly really stopped you from doing much.
Most of the work went into making the clouds themselves double up as lightning clouds, generating their own electricity to fuel the ships' weapons with, as well as making them float naturally despite being at least semi-solid. You don't even know how half of what this stuff does work, exactly, so you'll just plead tinkertech and call it a day.
"You know, we could add some lasers, just for old times' sake," Sherrel comments as you stand next to her atop the Grand Cruiser's deck, watching Kate race Taylor with a crying Aisa clinging to anything in reach as she shouts to slow down.
"There will be no laser mortars," you declare with finality. Arms crossed and all. "They're bad enough where they're already installed."
"Spoilsport," she sighs, shaking her head and leaning down onto the railing with her elbows, ass naturally pushed outwards. It's a good look on her, especially with her tits hanging between her arms like this. "Guess they'll be okay with what they got. 'Specially the camouflage."
You aren't even gonna ask what additional features she snuck in while you were working on maximized convenience of use. Honestly, leaving those kinds of details to you is probably for the best all around; Sherrel wanted to put in entirely too complicated, yet simultaneously too fiddly controls that would've simply not been user-friendly at all.
"They're basically stealthier helicopters that can take off and land anywhere they please carrying a payload equivalent to a naval cannon easily fired at pretty much all angles," you summarize the salient points with a shrug. "Pretty sure they'll do alright."
"Just makes you think, I guess," the designated blonde bombshell says, looking on as the chase is reverse, Taylor having stolen Aisa and taking her along as she fires bolts of lightning at Kate's cloud-ship, the latter laughing as she dodges all of them at the last moment. "About the things you can fit into what you make."
Unconsciously, you heavily suspect, one of Sherrel's hands strokes across her belly, the very slightest of bulges showing if one knows to look out for it.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much. Sometimes, just letting things develop and fixing issues as they crop up is better than worrying about it."
"Guess you're right. We can always do lightning mortars later on," she sighs, pushing herself upright again, smiling.
You simply refuse to comment any further.
Time for another issue of 'Exploring Demons with Gabe!', you suppose. This time, you're dealing with what some might consider the weakest known kind of 'dragon-adjacent' demon.
Personally you don't really see the point of that when you may as well call them overgrown lizards with a penchant for stealing shiny crap, but hey, to each his own. Either way a Lesser Fiend Drake is kind of a lot more dangerous than the name really implies; they're just considered 'lesser' on account of mostly everything anyone calls a 'drake' of any kind in hell being stupidly strong in general, really.
And then you have actual Fiend Dragons, such as the one whose essence serves as the foundation of your tattoo. Whole different level all around. Honestly, you're pretty sure people just like to attribute dragon-like attributes to things, but hey, you ain't no expert, so who are you to judge, right?
Not that Lesser Fiend Drakes care either way, mind you. In contrast to their more intelligent 'cousins', some of whom are capable of speech in addition to their unending greed and belligerence, these things are just greedy and belligerent- theoretically capable of understanding speech, according to the notes your personal lawyer slash secretary (no matter what she thinks about that, you've decided she is what she is) gave you, just wholly uninterested in what anyone has to say.
Physically reminiscent of enormously oversized, vaguely humanoid lizards covered with dark red and black scales, rows of sharp spines jutting from their backs, giant fangs made for ripping meat off armor and bone in equal measure and twisted horns borne from their heads, these things are physically intimidating just as they are, even if they aren't actively looking to tear you apart.
Which they can with alarming ease if you're a vanilla mortal, for the record. Not only are they stupidly strong giant lizards the size of a literal tank at the lower end, their 'hands' end in hooked claws meant to find purchase in just about anything, combined with a manual dexterity only possible thanks to each 'finger' growing out of its own ball joint.
Extremely prolific climbers, the things usually live in the rougher parts of extremely hot layers of hell, swimming in any streams or lakes of lava available. Their body temperature is stupidly high as well, of course, their very saliva hot enough to literally melt people if fresh enough, and when agitated or fighting their eyes literally glow like hot coals on steroids.
Which, incidentally, happens a lot, as they're very, very easily agitated. As aforementioned, they have a habit of eagerly collecting anything that glitters, gold or otherwise- coins, jewelry, objects made of metal not rusted over, even particularly well-polished stones, anything.
Those objects they take a shine to they then bring into their very own hidden nests… that is, they're so-so in terms of actually being hidden. Adventurous or just generally carefree demons often make a habit out of stealing from them for a living in those places Lesser Fiend Drakes can be easily found, and they also steal from each other on top.
Whenever they then spot something's missing, chances are they go on a rampage blindly attacking anything in sight until they've killed the thief- or someone completely unrelated that happened to have something else on them to bring back to their hoard instead.
Worse, these things really, truly are none too bright, so they easily forget things they added to their collection previously. Or things they already noticed missing before. Or they thought they had something they never actually managed to snatch up in the first place. All in all, they're very, very easily agitated and usually spend their time in an angry frenzy more often than not.
Kind of a problem when you're talking about things the size of a tank, easily capable of ripping apart said tank and withstand a shot or two from said tank without issue, thanks to their massive scales and equally massive tenacity. All in all, Lesser Fiend Drakes are the kind of problem that takes most militaries a long weekend to solve, rather than an afternoon.
And now here you stand, looking at one of the things as its split tongue swishes through the air within the circle you used to summon it, tasting its surroundings, eyes wide and blank in preparation of what is to come. In its outstretched claws, a small ball of fire glows, showcasing more control over it than you'd thought- you didn't expect it to be able to even do this, to be honest.
Not that your intel is necessarily perfect- you just work off of what you get and your secretary-lawyer isn't an expert on demon ecology, to be entirely fair. Still you take a moment to look this Lesser Drake over, the demon staring right back at you ready to strike at a moment's notice.
Might as well give it a try then. "I don't suppose you'd be amenable to a trade or something? Your essence if I promise you a few baubles in exchange?" You offer, one hand vaguely gesturing at your side.
The Lesser Fiend Drake stares at you, unblinking, the glow coming from the depths of its throat slowly rising in intensity to match its eyes.
"Yeah, that's about what I guessed," you groan, shaking your head. Then you raise your arms, Last Embrace tightly fitting against them. "Guess we're doing the hard way after all."
Fun fact, Lesser Fiend Drakes can take a tank apart through sheer brute force in seconds. You can do it moments.
A cult never called itself a cult.
One of those things that made a lot of sense when really thinking about it. A cult didn't want to appear cult-y, the word brought with itself a certain image that nobody really wanted to be associated with. Cults wanted legitimacy, to be taken seriously by its members (and victims) while appearing innocuous to outsiders.
It didn't want to be ringing alarm bells the moment someone called its name, unless it was ultimately just a gathering of particular individuals that never outgrew their edgy teen phase. So they usually called themselves a society, or an organization at most; maybe even a sect of some larger, more recognized religion to slip under its umbrella and leech on the acceptance they provide.
Long story short, nobody openly calls themselves a cult. Same way 'glorious revolutionaries' didn't go around calling themselves terrorists- unless they lost of course, in which case they were called such whether they wanted it or not.
What would the faithful call themselves then? They hadn't come about as a typical cult or religion might, a faith system or mythology built up by its believers or a central doctrine developed and pushed through on them. No, they had stumbled upon the messages and teachings of a distant, powerful thing that had lent them aid when they needed it most, in a way that could not be called anything other than blatantly supernatural, and taken advantage of this while building up belief into this entity… which was in turn rewarded with more miracles.
It was as simple as that, ultimately. Faith for miracles. A covenant between man and God, except this one actually was clearly observable and present, cause and effect related closely enough to be felt.
Many thought that aggressively rejecting what had come before was their best choice, disillusioned with the faith that never had been quite this real, that was, real enough to make things happen. Others were hesitant, not out of rational caution so much as out of sheer ingrained need not to blaspheme, for all that it truly did not make much of a difference either way.
As such, quite some discussions were had inside and beneath the Shelter. Should they call themselves the True Faith, to make the point of previous faith being false by comparison? Should their God be the True God? Should all other faiths be shunned and avoided, for they had a hotline to God himself (inconvenient and indirect as it may be) where others did not?
Or was it wiser to tolerate such things, to avoid making enemies or turn away more pious believers of the old faiths? For that matter, whose role was it to decide these things, who really had that authority in the society they were rebuilding?
These questions, like many others, were answered the hard way when, after seven days and seven nights of intense prayer, the 'high priestess', as some had called her, first jokingly, then not, came upon the people with unfathomable darkness in her eyes, her voices reverberating in the air as they spoke on frequencies no human throat should be able to.
When God sends you a message and makes someone go announce it to you while rooting you to the spot until it's done, you listen. Few were daft enough not to get it at this point.
So it came that the council convened, headed by the Head of Faith, the leaders of several groups within the Shelter coming together to make decisions.
Their God's name was decided upon there, as well as many a thing that needed to be made clear to keep things running. The new government had to take care of plenty of minutiae, coordinate the people and their efforts, properly put into words what they were doing and how to do so.
The Crypticist Movement was later considered to have officially been born in these days, now that Crypticism had become the official state religion of the new nation they had set out to build. The first steps had been taken, already, the people gathered, their capital's construction begun, warmth and food supplied.
Now they began to dig. Not aimlessly adding one room and hall and hallway after another to meet the demands of the growing population of refugees, but rather more planned, more structured, more deliberate. Vast caves were to be excavated to grow the fruits of the depths, moss and mushrooms and whatever they had to beyond the limited, steady supply of food they had received from their bloodied prayers. Pools of blood were to be carved out of stone, filled and drained and filled again to entreat their deity's aid.
All planned around the logistics of creating such an underground empire, of bringing the food to the people once it had been collected and processed however necessary, of water and medical attention and passages reserved for pedestrian traffic or material loads.
And, of course… The long, long tunnels that were to be dug in all directions, allowing them to travel however far they would need to far beneath the cold and the snow of the skies above.
They would reconquer the world that had been taken from them, expansion fueled by desperation and new immigrants taken whether they wanted to be or not, integrated into the best community they could build under the circumstances, the bodies of those that would not see reason only serving to accelerate them in place of industrial machinery.
A new sense of purpose rang throughout the Shelter. Unity was born in what had been an unsure group of people just doing the best with what they had so far.
And the most deranged among them… Or the most in tune with their God… began to work wonders beyond what had been done until then.
And the dead that walked became ever more monstrous under their care, teeming masses of arms and legs that dug ever faster and further to meet the new demand for their labor. After all, there was no such thing as a taboo against disfiguring the dead when God had literally declared that, once the soul was gone, meat was just meat.
It may as well be useful meat at least, if it wasn't all that tasty.
You've done a lot of pretty crazy shit ever since you woke up inside your own coffin what feels like a couple lifetimes ago, for all that it's really not been all that long when you really think about it. Joined up with Kate to start up your own gang, became big and powerful enough you're able to essentially pressure a whole damn planet into shutting up and accepting you do whatever you want (the technical term is 'Too-Big-To-Fail', you believe) and even fucked a damn Endbringer up hard enough it just fucked off instead of fighting you long enough to wash out your entire city.
The skeletal arm of Leviathan is still hanging in the cafeteria not far from the picture of your abs, last you know what happened to it after you finished gnawing off what bits and pieces your jaws could handle.
You've also done tons of pretty crazy work with a lot of the things you've found along the way, not to mention your own powers. The sheer advancements in the field of robotics alone, never mind the insanity you got up to with the fragments of the souls of the deceased, ADAM and its sheer range of applications… The list goes on, but your point is made.
What can you say, mad science is kind of fun. Bit exhausting to do the theoretical parts before you get to play around with the results of your experiments, but that's what you've got your in-built science team for.
Which brings you to your newest goal in the field of 'what-the-fuckening', recently discovered and pioneered by yours truly. To this end, you're looking into readying everything you need to create a new life form from scratch.
The laboratory? A random chunk of Angel Beach, nice and far-off so nobody will interrupt too much. The materials?
You scoop up some of the liquid clouds lapping at the solid cloud-shores of the beach, raising the stuff up despite its attempts to run through your fingers. Pulling up more of it, you mess with gravity to form it into what you want, a hollow sphere raised to capture the first rays of the morning sun as it angles itself to be visible in the very skies.
Perfect.
You'd think working with the sun for this would be an issue for you, but your policy of passive-aggressively ignoring it for so long has its advantages. Now, usually when you work with your semblance, you create a body out of Aura, animated by a spark of yourself and fueled by said Aura, the shine of a soul required to keep the construct going as it expends what makes it up.
It's kind of hard to make something generate Aura on its own without giving it its own soul, and giving it its own soul would essentially make it its own separate entity rather than an extension of yourself, if you were even capable of doing so.
But, well, you're a god now. A capital 'G' God, even. Who's to say you can't just create a soul from scratch? You may need to scrape off a piece of your own soul in the process, but the thing's bloated and oversized anyways, you're sure it'll be fine.
Probably. Like, ninety percent. Eighty. Know what, you should probably get on with this before you start doubting yourself- one surefire way to fail, that, and you can't have that now can you?
Channeling your Aura and your Haki and your very soul outwards, through your arms and out your fingers into the ephemeral orb you filled up, you focus, willing creation into existence. You are a God. If you can't demand that things happen and they do, then who can, really?
It's an annoyingly slow process, but something does happen. The sunlight you captured in clouds twinkles, shifting, drinking in more of itself, filling up its vessel steadily until-
The clouds up above drift away, revealing the full shine of the sun, its bright, cancerous beams bearing down on you. And, more importantly, on the ball of clouds you've been filling up with sunlight and soul-bits and your intent to create.
Which is now swelling up, morphing, bulging outwards as it gains more and more physical presence, becoming firm and real and-
Heat and flame burst out, forming into a pair of arms, clouds swirling into poofy, cyclonic sleeves, the rest of the stuff sliding down to become some minimal clothing hanging off a shifting shawl, hugging the suddenly existing curves of a pretty girl emanating more heat, barely covering her breasts and hips, shoes morphing between thigh-highs to the knees and back.
Swirling, intense eyes stare at you as your newest creation smiles widely at you, sparks of sunflame bursting into the air as she takes a pose, dainty fingers outstretched. "Papaaa!"
"…Hey sweetie, welcome to the world," you decide to answer. Really, what's one more daughter, right?
The newest addition to your family is pretty amazing all around- on obvious principle on account of being your daughter, of course- what with her ability to float around trivially, manipulate sun-fire hot enough to incinerate just about anything in sight and the fact she's got some of your ability to manipulate the weather at large in her; she can reshape the clouds, focus sunlight to the point people become ants under a magnifying glass to her and generally decide that there's a storm now, or icy hail, and take on the properties of the new weather she causes.
Kind of limited to more or less 'naturally occurring' weather, but considering she can do this stuff a lot faster and easier on a more localized level than you do it's… still pretty powerful in several ways, really. You're definitely absurdly proud of your daughter, at any rate.
Returning to the Grand Cruiser as she hovers at your back, a slender hand holding on to your shoulder so you just drag her along, you happily announce this addition to your family. "Hey everyone, this is Hestia and she's officially my youngest daughter. Make sure to get along with her, yeah?"
"I- you- Gabe!" Sarah stutters, shooting to her feet, pointing at you. "We left you alone for ten minutes!"
"What can I say, I work fast," you shrug, Hestia bouncing up and down behind you with the motion.
"Hello papa's wives and minions!" She, for her part, just waves happily, her bright smile never so much as budging out of place.
"Hey, least she's cute as a button," Kate points out, coming closer. "So who's the lucky girl?"
"Me, obviously," Hestia says, tilting her head.
"I was thinking more 'bout who blondie here will be jealous of for the next day and a half before she's too happy about you to keep it up," your girlfriend amends with a grin of her own, reaching out to pat the flames of Hestia's head… getting her Aura flaring up to protect her as she does.
"Oh, that's obvious," your daughter beams, literally and figuratively. "Papa decided to fuck the sun so hard it had his child!"
"…I can't even," Sarah mutters, falling over in sudden (feigned) exhaustion. "Can we please just blow up every sun everywhere forever already?"
"Does explain why I'm going all weak in the knees just from being her vicinity," Kate comments, shrugging.
"Aww, I like you too, mommy Kate!"
You nod, satisfied. Looks like your family is taking the surprise growth well overall, so far.
When you go to leave Skypiea, you don't dawdle long, nor do you waste time with useless pageantry; you just introduce Hestia to 'Old Man Gan', tell him she's to be a stand-in for yourself and that's pretty much that. And that's pretty much that- your daughter doesn't really need much help getting herself established now that you've given your word and all that.
She'll figure out the rest, or else contact you if she needs anything. In the meantime, you have places to see, people to eat, all the usual things you do, so you embark as soon as you've made sure everyone's aboard- Aisa, too, without complain to your surprise.
It turns out she's a surprising ally Sarah found in her indignation about you… Well, technically you did produce a new life by injecting the seed of your soul into a ball of sunlight and clouds, though you'd object to describing this as you 'mating' with the sun, as it were. Still both of them took issue, it seems.
Ah well, they'll get over it or have a serious talk with you at some point, you suppose. In the meantime, off you go!
Sailing across the White White Sea until you reach the edge of the cloud formation you've spent… quite a lot of time in by this point is, of course, not what you're about to do; not only would it take way too long of a time, you also can just bust straight through the watery clouds holding the Grand Cruiser aloft at any time you wish, so it's more of a question of which direction you'd like to take from here.
There's a few options in that regard, of course, far more for you than for most that would be stuck with wherever their Log Pose would point them. Though you could do just that, your own primary navigational tool for the Grand Line all ready to continue guiding you, you also know of some kind of black market you can reach from a place called Water Seven, another island along the Line, and then there's the hint for the whole thing Robin is tracing after suggesting that another Poneglyph- or something in that direction- might be found there.
All options lead into the same general direction, indicating you just need to move further along the Grand Line to hit each of them eventually, as long as you make sure not to just blaze past them on accident, what with how much of a bitch it can be to navigate. Still leaving the question- should you make it a point to seek out one of these places, just keep triangulating their relative positions as you move, or actively target any of these places as your next destination?
…Fishman Island is reportedly the furthest from where you are, according to Robin, so that probably should play into your decisions here, but while it would add a bunch of travel time you could go there first, then sail back. Whether it would be worth the bother is another question entirely, though.