Not all marines are equally useful
The little ship was sailing away leaving the enchanted island behind. They were lucky they didn't have to dig a grave: the dead body vanished into thin air dispersing into motes of light—like a harsh reminder not to toy with such matters. Nami wiped tear tracks from her face as she turned into a decisive and harsh task-mistress. Everyone scrambled to do their part.
It was then they all learned Shantae should never be left within a cannon shot of all that rigging stuff! She now knew the names of all these sailing things, as a bonus to knowing the language. She was trying her best, too...
After untangling the sail that got tied into a knot, they went at it from the beginning. Everyone scrambled—except the half-Genie who was languishing in her uselessness. Until she learned there were marines lurking outside the storm. So that's how those guardsmen in white and blue were called. She immediately offered to scout them out as a mermaid. Luffy was whining that that would be no challenge but Nami out-growled him. Such a fierce girl!
She had to go a sizable distance. Shantae was disembarking, swimming through the storm, taking a look and swimming back. After repeating that three times—the storm wasn't narrow either—it became clear all the marine ships were staying together in one spot, their sails furled.
Disregarding Luffy's whining Nami directed "Going Merry"—so that was the name of this caravel—to opposite direction. They sailed away hidden behind the mirage of the barrier until their profile was firmly below the marines' horizon—and only then have they turned back towards the Battleship Island.
In Shantae's opinion it should have been named Spruce Island. Much more resemblance that way.
While they were on the way, she became acquainted with everyone and told them about herself a bit. The swordsman Zoro was prone to napping—that's why she haven't met him from the start. Even now he went up to the forecastle, sat leaning with his back against the railing and went sawing logs. The clingy-gallant blond man turned to be the cook named Sanji. Shantae had mixed feelings towards him. On one hand, he was like thatkind of guys. Even his nose became that of a monkey for a moment. On the other hand, he was so amiable and was feeding her such delicacies!
Captain Usopp—who turned out not a captain at all after Nami hit him upside the head—was actually the gunner and also inventor of various thingamajigs. She told him about her Uncle who was an inventor as well. Both agreed it was pity he could never meet the old man.
Luffy settled on the sheep head staring at the ocean stretching to the horizon. He looked all easygoing and carefree-like but Shantae haven't forgotten that glare of his. For his friends, this guy would unscrew your head and say it was that way to begin with. She tried apologizing for hurting Nami but he waved it aside arguing she didn't mean to. Stuff happens.
His role in the crew remained a mystery.
Apis was staying on the aft deck all the time, leaning on the railing and admiring the dragon on the raft. She started having a conversation with her. Learning that the little girl wasn't a part of the crew but rather lived on the Battleship Island whence marines kidnapped her from as they learned she was an ability user. Marines...? This world was all wrong-like, not black-and-white at all! And what sort of ability...? Turns out, Apis ate the Whisper-whisper fruit and could hear animals. So that's how she had read harpy's thoughts! They had a blast arguing with gusto if Apis hears animals' thoughts or their unsaid words in their own language.
She asked the little girl about the fruits. A sea devil? No, nobody had heard about the devil himself. But the fruits have to come from somewhere, right? Eating one takes away your ability to swim for the rest of your life. The horror! Just to get a quite weak magical ability...? No, no, she didn't meant it that way! Apis is not useless! But... To never swim again...? That's worse than losing a leg!
Oh! She didn't know it was a devil fruit, thought it was a lumpy melon...? And it was enough to bite it once...? And it tasted like poo...?
Shantae sincerely felt for the little girl. Was there a way to undo this?
Nami intruded their conversation, having noticed them scheming on the stern deck. No, they weren't plotting or anything. The red-haired commander then mellowed and educated them that the only undoing was with the death of the ability user. The fruit then re-appeared somewhere in the world. Do tell.
Apis consoled Shantae, told her she now helps the village by predicting weather and the movement of fish herds. Uhum, seagulls telling her.
Shantae in return told her about her friend Sora who, too, has friends among seagulls. Hmm, to think of it, how does Sora understand her birds? Without any fruit.
It didn't stop there. "big bro Luffy" was an ability user as well. He ate the gum-gum fruit that turned him into a rubberman. So that's what it was! What about that mean mage with a tall hairdo?
Nami explained that that disgusting person-Eric the whirlwind was his name-likewise possessed the power of a devil fruit. So as soon as he fell into the sea...
Shantae was lost in thought. So, in this world anyone has a chance to become a magical creature by paying with their ability to swim? How does their magic work? Unlimited like magical creatures' innate abilities or does it require mana?
Nami got offended by some strange reason, she began arguing trying to prove there was no magic in their world. What about the fruit users, Shantae deflected. What about the enchanted island they just left?
The orangette tried arguing that fruit users' abilities were just that-abilities-while the mirage surrounding the island was because a temperature gradient, a perfectly natural phenomena.
Yeah right, perfectly natural, perfectly circular and holding for years—why else haven't anyone discovered the island before them?
Nami kept stubbornly to her misguided beliefs but Shantae proved her wrong showing her, with hard facts, that magic was magic, including all the "abilities" of the fruit users. Natural philosophy is important too but you just can't mix apples and oranges like that! Even if books tell you otherwise. What sort of craze was that, denying the obvious?
It seems, she overdid it. Nami looked like she wanted to either kill someone or slam her head against a wall, repeatedly. Her eye was twitching. So awkward: the half-Genie only wanted to make it up for the other girl, smooth over the aftermath of her epic fiasco that caused Nami very painful moments! But she only made it worse. Thankfully, the situation got saved by Sanji who brought tea with cupcakes.
The tea seemingly made Nami relax but Shantae was making an effort to keep out of the other girl's sight never the less, and not to voice her opinion. Especially as she was useless for sailing the ship.
Apis told her the full story of the Millennial Dragons, about Ryuji and the search for the lost island—which led them back to where they started from. So, then the Spruce... err, Battleship Island was the sought for lost island? That sank with the dragons' nesting grounds on it?
Wait, if it sank... Oh! It partly sank! Shantae immediately volunteered to dive and check, since the island was now clearly visible above the horizon.
Nami agreed recalling the currents there hinted at a wide shallow surrounding the island. No, not thiswide! Who's restless? Well, maybe a bit.
She had to hold her horses.
She climbed into the crow's nest to stare out into the beautiful sea while lazing around—an occupation she had rarely time for as of late. The caravel was sailing towards the island unhurriedly, tilted a bit sideways under a side wind. Nami below was intermittently watching the clouds leaning against the railing or watching over the dragon. And sighing a lot.
Shantae squinted in the sun, thinking what to do from this point on. There was no returning to the Sequin Land. She wasn't so much missing her comfortable life—that went downhill even before her being whisked away—as she was missing her friends. She would be missing them and they would be missing her. And also, Uncle Mimic. Who is growing old, who would help him now?
But she could only go back by fulfilling someone's wish. Shantae shuddered recalling Nami's tears in vivid detail. No way! Never! Not until she masters her Genie powers—she won't even think of using them before that. She only had to invent a way to learn control these powers without actually using them... Oh well, she'll think of it later. It'll sort itself out somehow.
Abandon all caution and go on a pirate adventure with the straw-hat crew...? On one hand, the journey was going to be epic, if one could judge it by its start in the form of a two-day survival swim. On the other hand... Shantae leaned over the edge. Nami was prodding the team to rearrange the rigging, having caught Usopp and pulled Luffy from his perch. Zoro growled something unintelligible like a bear not wanting to wake up and continued snoozing. They looked like good people but she didn't know them enough. Also, pirates have to—unless they are fighting a world-threatening evil—pillage towns while fighting the town guard in the process. What if she has to pillage, or fight the marines? Having worked her entire career as a town defender-against pirates as well-Shantae wasn't ready for such a turn!
But she craved adventure.
Having postponed the decision—her head was throbbing already—Shantae was guessing lazily who's the captain. Judging by the hat, it should be Luffy, but why then did Nami order him around?
Then Sanji called everybody for lunch.
She jumped from the crow's nest unthinkingly, flexing her entire body to bleed the inertia as the deck slammed at her heels... Made Nami jump, then keep casting disapproving glares while grumbling something about a "monster trio". What a curse, she made things awkward again!
The pilaf was amazing, tho. It washed all her grievances away. She thanked the cook for the lunch, tried asking him to share the recipe... But her attempt at a face-to-face conversation made Sanji, how to say this politely, fired up. Way too much. Instead of a recipe the dancer girl received a heap of compliments and promises of new delicacies accompanied with a dance of a wild spinning-top. Culminating with a deserved punch by Nami upside her head. Ow.
Note to self: do not talk to Sanji without a good reason. Washing dishes as a form of apology would wait for another time.
The island was close now. Shantae, without unnecessary talks, just transformed into a mermaid and dove overboard. The bottom emerged at the depth of about thirty fathoms. Sharp, jagged rocks faded in from the greenish twilight, covered with corals and overgrown with seaweed, a pasture for fish herds. For awhile, she just kept swimming above those jagged peaks emerging slowly from the depth. So, the shallow confirmed. What now? How to tell it was that dragons' nesting grounds?
With a powerful stroke of her tail, Shantae dove deeper, into the labyrinth of ravines between those rocks. Blue-tinted darkness was reigning here, made deeper by seaweed closing above like tree crowns. Relying more on the fish sense from her lateral line—indistinct and doubling in these passages because it worked akin to echolocation—Shantae was searching the nooks and crannies nearly by touch startling the fishes hiding there. How could one find anything here? If the shallow is equal distances from the island on all sides, that makes it more than a mile across of such a labyrinth!
Hanging still in the water, lost in thought, she noticed a peculiar shape of the nearby rock. Well, what do we have here?
It turned out to be a petrified dragon, of the same kind as Ryuji, sprawled sadly on top of the rock, its head tucked under its wing. Covered in corals like it grew into the rock.
Long used to all kinds of dead things—including caves with their entire floors and walls consisting of human skulls—Shantae didn't even flinch as she kept searching further. Here's another one. And another. The entire sea bottom here was peppered with petrified dragons! This wasn't a nesting ground but rather a burial ground! Ryuji had probably mixed things again.
She surfaced towards Merry, jumped from the water at speed onto the deck detransforming mid-flip. She was loathe hurting Apis but had to tell things as they were. The tiny one dashed to converse with her dragon, yelled at him with tears in her eyes. The green-feathered one opened one golden eye and, judging by Apis' reaction, began explaining something to her. The little girl's sobbing grew so intense her speech turned incomprehensible.
The tired dragon closed his eyes and, it seems, fell asleep.
Shantae asked Apis what was the matter—mostly to support her in her grief, things were clear enough without words.
The little girl complained about Ryuji telling her that he'd get better here, that everything would be all right, but refusing direct answers, deflecting and evading. Apis understood he didn't want to make her sad, but she got it, she admitted.
Then bawled again.
Never, ever underestimate the sharpness of children!
Nami led Apis to the galley, to cure her by giving her tea to drink. Sanji joined them so Shantae had to stay outside, to avoid making things tense.
"This is wrong," Luffy proclaimed as he pushed his hat down with splayed fingers. "I don't believe Rynchi lies to Apis. He wouldn't, not about such things."
"So we found a wrong island again?" Usopp suggested.
Zoro was sleeping silently, without snoring.
"Maybe he's like that Phoenix bird?" Shantae thought aloud. "And he has to die to be reborn again?"
"Oh, that's why!" Luffy slapped his fist against his open palm in relief.
"Such things happen?" Usopp boggled.
"Well, I'm just guessing," Shantae warned them. "Just don't go... Is the deck shaking?"
There was deep, ominous rumble coming from the sea. Waves were growing strangely, rising up in a chaotic struggle.
"A sea quake!" Luffy exclaimed merrily.
"A sea monster would come from below and swallow us all!" Usopp panicked.
Zoro made a singular loud snore then kept sleeping silently.
Shantae ran up to the ship's side to lean over the railing. The sea was foaming, the ship was rocking, there was something vague in the depth, growing distinct... Could it be!
"The shallow is surfacing!" Shantae shouted. "Where's Nami, the shallow is surfacing right under us! It's all made of jagged rocks!"
Nami came like a hurricane commanding furiously. Everyone scrambled. Shantae dashed to and fro, then joined Usopp huffing at a big capstan inside the forecastle next to the cannon. She pushed hard and it spun easily! What, enough already...? Oh, we were lifting the anchor.
The hastily unfurled sails flapped growing taut and the caravel began heading away from the island—rocking hard, helped along by a rising current. The eddies around rising rocks were bumping it, throwing it with roiling streams, jerking it with whirlpools. Rocks began breaking through the surface here and there jutting predatorily but then they were finally over the edge, dropping down in a spray-and things began settling down. The caravel was carried and turned languidly by waters pouring from the former shallow to slow and quieten merging with the bottomless deep sea.
The island' surface grew incredibly larger, the central spruce-like mountain was now surrounded by vast expanses of coral-encrusted rocks.
"Ryuuujiiii!" Apis hollered dashing towards the railing so sharply she was only kept from tumbling overboard by Sanji grabbing her by the scruff of her neck.
The little girl was screaming and windmilling her legs in the air. The rope was dragging behind the ship, its end frayed. How would they find the raft with the dragon? Or just a drowning dragon now, green and shaggy, in a sea littered with uprooted seaweed?
"To the shore!" Luffy commanded. "Your dragon is there!"
Notably, everyone obeyed—even Nami... Who immediately started ordering everyone around—and they all obeyed, even Luffy.
These fellows had very confusing team dynamics.
On a side note, Zoro was working the rigging along the others. As friendly as a rudely awakened bear, his head sporting a lump. It seems Nami could be terrifyingly persuasive.
They moored the ship in a steep-sided cleft tying it to both shores. A powerful stream of sea water gurgling deeper up the cleft it, foaming the sea in front of the caravel's bow. Climbing ashore from there was awkward but possible. Most wiggled out of disembarking via Luffy's "gum-gum rocket" after seeing the pile of Luffy, Zoro and Apis slamming into scattered rocky deposits. Shantae wholeheartedly agreed. She jumped over as a monkey, Nami got carried over by Sanji and Usopp bravely stayed behind to "guard the ship".
She was about to suggest she fly scout ahead but Luffy was striding forward with so much confidence as if he had a magical sense for dragons. Should as him about it later.
The terrain was rough, wet jagged rocks with fossilized dragons towering all around—so many—souring the mood of Apis further. They had to meander around pools, ponds and whole lakes of salty waters across rocks covered in slippery and slimy stuff.
"This isn't a nesting ground, this is a graveyard," Nami muttered under her breath.
But there, at last, was a wide shallow lake, the dragon's body laying in it in an unmoving shaggy heap.
Apis rushed forward only stopping when she waded ankle deep soaking the edge of her robe. She was yelling at the dragon pitifully, calling him a liar, sniffing in snot mixed with tears. It was painful to watch.
But the dragon turned to be alive! Lifting his head laborously, he tried roaring—and failing at it. In a coughing fit he rolled to the side, spent. His head went under, bubbles arising..
"Hold on!" Shantae shouted at him as she danced an elephant transformation. Galloping up up to Ryuji, she held his head up with her trunk. They had to pull him out somehow! Turning to the straw-hats, she trumpeted calling them.
Sanji and Zoro recovered from their shock in half a minute, ran up and began helping her drag the dragon through the waist-deep water. So strong! Ryuji wasn't light, she'd fail on her own even in this form. Luffy joined by stretching his arms from the shore. The four of them quickly pulled the green-feather one ashore.
"Ryuji, you promised!" Apis hugged the head laying listlessly. The dragon croaked weakly in reply. "What do you mean, all will be well? You are unwell, I can see!"
"Say, Ryuji," Dropping her transformation Shantae squatted in front of the dragon's muzzle. "Your kin is like the phoenix, right...? Well, you know what I'm saying?" She cast a meaningful side glance at the little girl.
The dragon squeaked raspily without opening his eyes.
"To be born again?" Apis mumbled, incomprehending. "Ryuji, what do you mean?"
"There are those magical creatures," Shantae explained, "who live eternally, dying and being reborn again. The Phoenix bird is reborn in flames... While millinnial dragons are reborn on this island that surfaces once every thousand years, right...?"
Ryuji creaked affirmatively as he opened his huge golden eyes to stare at Apis. He then closed his eyes, shuffled a bit like he was tucking down comfortably before going to sleep, sighed one last time—and stopped breathing.
"Ryuji," Apis sniffed still disbelieving.
Suddenly huge shadows blotted out the sun. Millennial dragons were streaming overhead like a wide, full river. Shantae and Apis were looking with delight, others in awe and only Luffy was grinning from ear to ear.
Circling the central peak once, the dragons let out a powerful cry that shook the ground making the lake ripple and made every erect-walking biped clutch at their ears. The humongous flock then went for landing, distributing across the newborn island. The dragons were flapping ponderously, hovering for a moment before landing on their huge bird legs.
"I wonder what they feed on," Sanji wondered aloud. "Maybe we see the reason tuna is a rare fish?" He clicked a lighter lighting up a smoking stick in his teeth.
"Ryuuji!" Apis stampeded towards a freshly hatched baby dragon disregarding adults crowding around. Who, in turn, only sniffed at her cautiously. The baby dragon—so adorable with its tuft of feathers!—was squawking loudly, Apis was promising it something with tears in her eyes-this time those were tears of joy. And Shantae notices coral growths on the egg. So, did that mean it was resting here for a thousand years...? Curious.
She did not voice her findings, though. There are things better left unsaid—like the place where one can find Rottytops' soul Shantae stumbled upon during her travels.
After finally saying her goodbyes to her reborn friend the beaming Apis led the crew to the village and her Grandpa. Why so sour, everyone, Shantae inquired. Oooh, the Grandpa loves telling the entire family tree beginning with the founding fathers of a thousand years ago? That's harsh.
The trek was long, mostly because of the new land added to the island being a labyrinthine broken mess of jagged spires, lakes, slippery rocks and sharp corals. It was incredibly picturesque, tho: water streaming everywhere, dragons resting or preening, sometimes freshly hatched babies surrounded by the warmth and care of their adult kin.
But finally, they got there. After handing Apis to her Grandpa—impressively bushy eye brows this one had—they skedaddled, not even lured by the promise of buns.
And now, to trek all the way back to shore.
Only Nami was in a bad mood and only because of the risk to slip. Luffy was carefree. Zoro and Sanji were squabbling about something in hushed voices. Shantae was using this occasion to train her balance on rough terrain, by jumping onto every slimy and uneven boulder along their path.
"Are you in a hurry to break a leg?" Nami finally asked, her voice tired.
"Naw, I'm... training," Shantae explained, forced to take a running jump off to keep her feet under her, then skidding to a stop. "You never know—"
And then, thundering of cannons interrupted them, sounding from not far away. The dragons around them becoming alarmed, lifting their heads.
"It's those marines!" Nami exclaimed. "Could they have found Merry?"
"I'll go look!" Shantae shouted dancing her harpy transformation. Then, not listening anymore, she took flight straining her wing-arms with vigorous flapping.
It became immediately apparent that the marines were far to the right from the nook where the caravel was hidden. It seems they were shooting... At the dragons?
Something slammed into her from below making her flip over. Then someone grabbed the calf of her scaly bird leg. Who...? Oh, it was Luffy. A grin from ar to ear, his other hand holding his hat down. She had nearly hit him with projectile feathers, surprised so sudden!
"Won't work!" Shantae warned him flapping with everything she got but beginning to drop never the less. "I can barely lift a half of my human weight!"
"Oh, sorry," the rubber guy replied as he released his grasp to drop out of sight.
Shantae started regaining the lost attitude. The dragon were obscuring her view, taking off en masse, buffeting her with their wakes. A chain of ships stretched across the blue expanse of sea, sporting familiar colors of the marines: green hulls, blue seagulls with forks on the white sails. And all there ships were shooting irregularly at the island, raising clouds of dust and crushed corals or water columns—from those shots that fell short. What a disaster! They could kill one of the newly hatched babies this way!
Indignation burning, Shantae flapped with tripled vigor accelerating towards the marine fleet. The dragons weren't idle either, some were already diving at the ships. One fell catching several cannonballs to its chest.
A fleeting thought that this wasn't her business—who knows what sort of bad blood is there between those dragons and the servants of the law?—passed by in a shade of uncertainty only to disappear swept away by righteous outrage. Let's find out who's their boss!
A quick glance down revealed these ships were definitely smaller than those chasing the strawhats this morning. Numbering about twenty. Among them, one was huge, awkward, circular in shape from above, its protruding bow ending in a huge gilded beast muzzle. How could it even move? All its sides were festooned with gilded ornaments, cannons peeking out between them, the center of its deck was occupied by a round building with a slanted roof, like a castle framed with smaller towers. Two of the three masts were tucked to the sides of this building, the last one behind it. The sails were marked with number eights instead of the usual marine symbol.
So. The central tower had a balcony-like protrusion towards the bow, with some sort of pink ball on a stand surrounded y scuttling ants. She bagan steering towards it —why was she flying so slowly?—when one of the dragons zipped by the ship's side, looking like a small birdie in comparison. What a whale! The small side towers turned out to be three stories tall, the central tower no less than Sultana's palace, and the ants turned into marines. What size were the cannons adorning the sides of the ship's protruding nose, then? And there, in the shadow of a gateway under the balcony, was an immense muzzle of a giant cannon. Likely more than a fathom across.
But all that was unimportant because she finally saw their boss! That pink ball was his belly, fat and round. The marines were lined around him subserviently.
Deciding to try persuasion first—it is never late to start swinging—homed precisely and dropped her transformation to drop at the target as a girl. The air was pinching and ruffling, rippling the silk of her trousers and tugging her by her hair backwards. The surface was approaching rapidly. Shantae was steering with her arms thrown wide, enjoying the freefall. It's a rare occasion she could experience it: the ground always hit her feet too hard, her spine aching afterwards. And if her Uncle learned of it he'd be beside himself from worry. But she couldn't help herself, got hooked the very first time after gaining the harpy dance she was experimenting to learn her maximum drop-off height, over-cautious and stacked with healing potions.
Turned out, there was no such height. Even achieving the, howzit, terminator velocity she was just bruising herself a tiny bit. She could jump down from the clouds, pity your arms feel like falling off after you climb up there.
The fall ended quickly as all good things do. At the right moment Shantae tucked herself up and made a three-point landing, her entire body flexing as one solid spring. Her feet and hand sang with numbness of impact, her spine creaking its protest. Showing no outward sign she stood up to take a heroic pose half-face forward, her accusing finger aimed at the commander:
"Stop this! Who are you to attack the dragons!"
It was of no importance she was looking at him from below. Such trivialities as a showy chair carried on the shoulders of marines had no effect on her. Not while righteousness was at her side!
Such a whale, tho. The bubble of his belly was overhanging, pushing apart his legs sporting stylish shoes with prominent treading on their soles. His cheeks flush with unhealthy redness were practically flowing over his shoulders.
"Me?" The fatso shook his surprise off, his deeply seated eyes glinting lecherously. "I am Fleet Commander Nelson Royale! But who are you, dressed so inappropriately?" He unfurled the fan he was holding in his left hand to hide half his face face adorned with long and thin twirly moustache. That made his belly wobble a bit. Blearg, he had tattoes the marine sumbol across its entire width. "Or, on the other hand, appropriately indeed...? Admit it, some of my seconds decided to make a surprise for me?"
"I'm not—" Moments like this one made Shantae regret her choice of outfit. Not for long, for about three seconds. Because it was still comfortable, practical in hot climates and very fitting her dancing style. While various... cravers like this one were just occupational hazards, so to speak. "I'm not here for silly stuff! But to stop the slaughter of those innocent dragons!"
"Oooh, you are after dragon bone as well?" His deeply seated eyes glinted with animal cunning. "Ha-ha-ha, isn't it a bit early for you to seek the elixir of eternal youth...?"
"So you're going to waste them for potions?！" Shantae shouted, seeing red. The Sequin Land had its own share of such personalities—take Squidsmith who wasted heart squids for heart holders. Shantae couldn't stand the woman. The words were off her tongue seemingly on their own volition: "You won't have it! Those dragons are friends of a friend! I will protect them!"
The spheroid commander snapped his fan shut:
"Grab her!"
The marines who, until this point, stood still like statues sprang into action all at once. Backsliding and dodging, Shantae suspected they were testing her, assessing her power level. The mastermind of a whole fleet—she couldn't think of them as protectors of justice anymore—should be well above common minions. This one wasn't looking like a fighter—unless he could bounce around like a ball, as Squid Baron does—which meant he must be cunning.
Dodging, sending marines flying with her hair and punting them away, she suddenly realized she just challenged a whole fleetof minions. There were a couple dozen ships full of them. But she couldn't go back on her word, could she?
The marines were flying left and right, some tumbling over the railing. She hoped they wouldn't fall to their doom that way. So. She had to conserve mana. The magical tiara can refill it, but slowly and at a cost for your well-being. What was the best strategy, gather as many as possible around herself to hit them with the Obliterate Dance? Or keep casting Storm Puffs above the deck...?
"What takes you so long!" the mastermind slapped his fan irritably. "Shoot her if need to!"
He was definitely testing her.
The marines pulled out their cutlasses and muskets. Thankfully, both of a familiar make, none of that tinker exotics. Just like the vast majority of non-magical things in the world of her birth. Shantae was deflecting the cutlasses with her bracers, an ingrained rote by now. She was glad she hadn't bought into replacing them with fancy ones, flaring into cones but lacking the blade-catching ridges at their ends. The threat posed by the muskets... Was laughable. With her mobility and danger sense Ranma himself helped her master, plus the delay between pulling the trigger and the actual shot... It only seems instantaneous to an untrained eye. The time for the freed cock to accelerate, the time for the sparks from the flint hitting the flashpan lid to ignite the gunpowder—it all adds to a very substantial fraction of a second.
They kept flying away, just at a slower pace. She had to twist and dodge more, no time for taking a look around. But the solid sound of a stampede coming closer wasn't promising anything good. Wait, she had seen some important feature from high up... Right, there were stairways leading to this balcony from the main deck!
It seems s he'd have no choice but use the Obliterate Dance. Not good, it consumes a ton of mana... Or should she simply knock the boss out? It was unlikely to work but the idea was too tempting. In one fell swoop get rid of having to fight the hordes of minions rushing her.
Without pausing her fight, Shantae launched a Storm Puff off-hand. The tiny frowning cloud hung above the puzzled commander for a moment before raining thundering lightning bolts all around as designed.
She had no time to examine her handiwork but it looked like both the mastermind and those holding his chair up were hit, now all piled on the floor singed and twitching. Alas, that did only enrage the marines pushing her. Yelling "the commander is wounded", "protect the commander" and the like they redoubled their efforts, now aiming to kill rather than capture. No more sandbagging, they were doing their best to lop her head off. Staggeringly strong! Not with physical strength or speed but with acting as one, never getting in each other's way but rather helping each other. Shantae was twisting and dodging pushed to her limit, blades and bullets passing dangerously close to her body.
She had to launch four more Storm Puffs, her mana reserves dropping noticeably. A couple above her head plus one for each of the two stairways. Lightning thundered around her hitting the marines, letting her take a breather.
Not for long: the tiny clouds quickly expended themselves, a new wave of marines was climbing over the barricades of twitching bodies. Shantae was twisting, backsliding, parrying—and hair whipping ferociously. These marines pushed hard! Ammo Baron's minions couldn't even compare. If not for training with Akane, then with Ranma, she could've been overwhelmed.
But the Shantae of today was different from her old self of three months ago. An improved backsliding, a clear understanding of Ki reinforcement, a new technique of grabbing with her hair... The smart-alecks trying to grab her hair were flying far and wide with loud yells. After all, if the willpower energy increases the effective mass of your hair twenty-fold, isn't that the same as decreasing the mass of the opponent you are whipping the same twenty-fold? The relativity principle in action.
"Who in the blazes are you?！" the awakened mastermind shrieked. "Shoot! Shoot her!"
"I am Shantae," she replied proudly as she launched three more Storm Puffs. "So you'd better skedaddle unless you want your behinds whupped!"
The little clouds thundered scattering the nearest opponents, giving her a room for other things. She struck with lightning from her palms outstretched in opposite directions as the nature of this spell dictated. She made a hasty one-eighty turn to hit everyone around her: keeping this spell going had a hefty mana cost while she was already below half.
She danced the harpy transformation in a hurry: the unaffected minions were preparing to rush her all at once again. Astounding tenacity! She took off barely dodging some bullets that knocked a few feathers out of her wings. She climbed the rigging rapidly helping herself by flapping her wings as only birds could.
"Yo!" Luffy greeted her from the crows' nest.
You, grinning jump-scare!
It seems he was assessing her as well-an understandable interest, she was likewise curious to learn how the rubber guy fought.
"Say, you don't like this Nettleson too, do you?" he asked leaning over the edge, which caused a chorus of "it's the straw hat!" yells from below.
"This nasty man wants to waste the dragons to make potions!" she shared her outrage. "How could I stand idle and do nothing?"
"Shishishi!" Luffy laughed, his smile contagious. "You must be strong if you aren't afraid of a whole fleet!"
"I'm really not," Shantae admitted self-critically as she detransformed. "I just often jump to do the right thing before thinking things through. Grinding them down will take a lot of time..." She, too, leaned over the edge to launch a Crush Puff down at the minions crowding around their mastermind.
They scattered, even managing to carry the wide-bellied one away. The very angry cloud crashed against the deck uselessly, its explosion blowing a hole in the boards. The distance was a bit too far for this kind of spells.
"I thought you were doing well?" Luffy noted with a hint of confusion as he watched the men in white and blue scramble down below.
"This all expends mana," she explained. "That replenishes very slowly. I can't say I fight bad without mana, but that leaves me with only hand to hand. Now look at these hordes! Unless I keep playing it smart and backing away this stampede'd simply trample me.
"Oh, got it!" Luffy exclaimed making a wise face. "You're strong but tire out quickly!"
"Well, you can say that."
She hadn't looked at herself from that angle. She felt so weak compared to the Nerima wrecking crew... But that was in pure hand to hand. How did Akane call her the day they met? A black belt in Genie Arts?
"Don't worry about the fleet," Luffy said. "Zoro and Sanji are on it."
She glanced back. There was something happening to the lot of small ships: they were moving erratically, masts were toppling. The sails of the mizzen mast were obscuring her view. She hopped out onto the sailyard and ran to its end to take a better look. Chaos was reigning on the decks of the small marine ships. Zoro was fighting on one, slashing with three swords at once while holding one in his teeth. The guys in white and blue were flying in all directions as if swept by a tornado. Sanji was spin-kicking on another ship, with a similar effect. Between those, several ships were in the process of sinking, broken and breached. Other ships were jerking helplessly, tilting and bumping into each other. Why were they—Oh! All those ships were connected y iron chains!
"I've no doubt they were going to catch us with that," Luffy snickered. "Like a butterfly net. But they got tangled in it themselves!"
"Such a trap is only good when everything goes well," Shantae agreed. "But if anything happens even to a single ship... And what if there is a squall?"
For the lack of a squall, Zoro and Sanji were successfully imitating the results of one. Masts were toppling, cut with a sword or broken with a leg strike-such might! Ships were sinking dragging their neighbors into the watery grave accompanied with chorused yells and panicked attempts to release chains jammed from tension.
The dragons seemingly realized the best approach to a ship was from the stern where it had no cannons. As a result, the losses among the green kin stopped with reverse increase in broken masts and torn sails. A couple dragons have even landed on decks to glare point blank as they loudly voiced their disapproval at the marines hollering in terror. Unlike cannonballs, bullets couldn't break through their shaggy coat of feathers.
Mont dragons, though, kept circling on high watching Zoro and Sanji moving along the ship chain, one left another right, sowing chaos and destruction.
But Shantae got another doubt gnawing at her. It was nice, of course, that those pirates were doing the same thing she was. But...
"Why?" she asked simply.
"Apis is one of us," Luffy explained. "These dragons are dear to her. What would she do if she was here?"
"She'd... Rush to their defense unthinkingly!" Shantae realized. "So until we beat this disgusting man, her and her dragon friends will be in danger!"
"Exactly!" Luffy exclaimed, cracking his knuckles eagerly. "Let's pummel this Celson!" He proceeded jumping down onto he balcony that held the commander.
After only a moment of hesitation Shantae followed him.
"The Straw Hat is here!" someone in the packed crowd of minions yelled panicking.
"Shoot, shoot!" the commander screeched.
Her danger sense prickled making her twist and contort in unexpected ways to let the deadly lead pass. When muskets stopped thundering, Shantae remained unhurt while Luffy... The rubber one hadn't been dodging at all. The bullets that hit him stretched his body making him resemble a hedgehog... To hit back at those who fired them when it pulled back into shape with a sharp rubbery snap!
His magical ability was so useful.
The remaining shooters fell back hastily to reload giving way to a wall of guys with cutlasses. Shantae hastily put several Shtorm Puffs in their way—she was running low on mana—as she prepared to battle hand-to-hand. But Luffy surprised her yet again. Warning her with a hasty "duck!" he then shouted "Gum-gum... Whip!" as her encircled the entire crowd with his outstretched arms. The marines slowed, pressed against each other like fishes in a net, unable to wave their cutlasses... A second later the entire pile of them was flying over the edge down to the main deck.
Only rarified loners remaining, the gunmen were dropping their muskets and ramrods as they legged it.
The commander had barely avoided being swept along. Now his chair was tilting, its carriers twisting desperately to avoid falling into the hole made by Shantae, their feet barely finding purchase on the splintered ends of the cracked, sagging boards.
"What are you waiting for!" the boss demanded shrilly. "Shoot! Save your commodore!"
"That won't work," Luffy said, his voice dangerous, as he shuffled sideways so that his back was towards the island. "You shouldn't have picked on one of our own, Pickleson. We stand for each other!"
The boss made a nervous gulp, his eyes growing wide. His carriers were shaking like leaves.
"Gum-guuuuum..." Luffy's arms began stretching back, longer and longer.
Shantae decided to add her touch by launching a Storm Puff at the fatso, just not to be a bystander: she was nearly out of mana anyway.
There was a dramatic, one-second long pause.
"Bazooo—"
The world slammed at her feet with crushing force, drowning in fire and bone-shaking roar that was soon replaced with ringing in her ears and singing in her numb feet. Flame, smoke and sails were spinning around blurring into a chaotic kaleidoscope.
A second later she managed to find her bearings and even twist in the air righting herself for a safe landing.
There was nowhere to land. The ship had erupted like a volcano, swelling, spewing billowing fire and smoke out of numerous breaches. Now it was deflating, collapsing into itself in a pile of shattered, barely holding together timber. The masts were toppling, the castle collapsing. Where the balcony with the commander once was, a huge crater was yawning, barely visible through billowing black smoke.
Innumerable flotsam and other debris was flying through the sky along Shantae. What was that? Could Luffy's attack have been so powerful?
And then she remembered blowing the plastic explosives with her Storm Puff to break the door to the Hypno Baron's dungeon. And also about the immense cannon stationed right below the place where she'd made a hole earlier. If one imagines how much gunpowder would that cannon require...
Oopsie.
She didn't want to, honestly! She wasn't going to sink this ugly ship! And—Oh no, Luffy!
She panicked looking this way and that, having remembered the local "fruit users" were swimming as well as hammers. Thankfully, the rubber guy had already found a way out: the corner of her vision caught a dark shadow flying rapidly upwards, one incredibly long arm connecting it to a circling dragon's neck.
Steering with her arms the best she could, Shantae bounced off a sail, pushed off a flying log and finally managed landing in water, bypassing the pile of firewood bristling with sharp ends the flagship was rapidly turning into.
She surfaced. The sea around her was foaming from a rain of dangerous debris. Stinky smoke was flowing over the waves obscuring the sun. The marines were floating around like dumplings in a soup, some panicking others unconscious. Well, she hoped they were unconscious.
She had to dive again to avoid a falling mast. It still got her, hitting her upside the head so hard she saw sparks. Ow. She surfaced to climb onto a suitable piece of flotsam. Ah... So many men floating there, unmoving—should she try saving them...? They were her opponents and stuff, but leaving them would be too cruel.
The other marines, swimming around fully conscious, were glaring at her and whispering among themselves. Which convinced her very quickly: they had things well in hand while she could suffer for any kind of kindness. She then danced the harpy transformation and winged it.
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
Somewhere a midst boundless ocean there is a non-standard Marine ship, its figurehead a huge, droopy-eared dogs head that holds a yardram-sized bone in its mouth.
A hulking old man is snoozing on the deck, about three meters tall. His short trimmed beard is completely gray, his weathered face is craggy but his barrel-like chest and knotted hands exude incredible might. He is wearing a dramatic white epauletted cape over a gray three-piece suit, his head adorned by a funny cap shaped like a droopy-eared dogs head.
"An urgent missive from the headquarter!" a faceless marine runs up to him to stand ram-rod straight at attention.
"Huh?！" the commander wakes up. "Well-well, let's see..." He takes the offered sheet of paper and begins reading it mumbling under his breath: "Hmmm... A heretofore unknown Shantae joining the Straw Hat pirates...? Hmm... The Bird-bird fruit, model Thunderbird, singlehandedly destroyed the flagship of the East Blue's Eight branch...? A suspected pirate base on the Battleship island under the cover of a huge flock of fierce dragons...? Luffy, what did you get yourself involved with this time..."
The mighty old man stands lost in thought for a bout a minute before lifting his head and giving a thunderous command:
"Plot course towards the Battleship island!"
A short pink-haired cabin boy had overheard this. He utters with a heavy sigh:
"Luffy-san, what trouble you got yourself into this time..."
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
"Going Merry" was sailing the vast open sea, the Battleship island growing smaller astern. The sky ahead was as slowly turning into a gray overcast murk.
Zoro was snoozing somewhere on the forecastle leaning with his back against the white railing, his three swords leaning next to him.
Sanji was doing his magic in the galley preparing a dinner worthy of champions. The smells reaching from there promising.
Others gathered on the stern deck overhanging the sea like a semi-circular balcony raised half a fathom above the main aft castle deck. The same fancy white railing acting as the gunwale was adding to the feeling of a balcony.
Usopp was sighing, lamenting the missed opportunity to shoot: he had loaded the cannon beforehand dragging it into position. Now he was working hard at picking the cannonball out: you can't just leave it loaded, the gunpowder would dampen and fossilize making unloading it a colossal pain.
"I wasn't going to sink it!" Shantae was explaining it again to Nami who had only seen the fight from afar, following it by toppling masts. "I just haven't thought they'd have all their gunpowder piled in there. I was nearly out of mana, so I just launched one last Storm Puff, no to to just stand there pretty. But it turned into that disaster."
"That doesn't belay the fact that you had obliterated the flagship of a whole marine branch," Nami said with tired frustration. "Had they come just a bit later, they'd be guaranteed to get impaled by the rocks when the island was surfacing. And that would have been a force majeure, no one to blame. But as it happened, they will hang it on us. The entire marine fleet will start chasing us! As if Luffy's bounty of three thousand manBeri wasn't enough."
"Shishishishi!" the indomitable captain laughed. "But it's more fun this way!"
"Do as you please," Nami dismissed with an air of hopelessness.
"I wanted to do the right thing," Shantae echoed her gloom. "But I only ended framing you guys. And becoming a notorious outlaw myself."
"You are funny!" Luffy laughed. "Join my crew!"
Nami glared at him sullenly but did not say anything.
"Weeeell..." Shantae drawled, flattered but suffering indecision after today's epic fail. "I'd—I want to know why are you doing this... I mean I know you are adventuring, but—"
"Got it!" Luffy interrupted her. "Every one of us has a dream. Me, I am going to become the King of Pirates." Seeing her frown he added: "Not for the sake of gold or power but because the King of Pirates is the freest man in the world! Nami dreams of drawing a map of the entire world. Zoro, becoming the strongest swordsman. Sanji, to find All Blue where fishes of all four oceans meet."
"And I dream to become a brave warrior of the sea!" the soot-stained Usopp puffed his scrawny chest straightening up from his cannon for a moment.
"I am... Flattered," Shantae admitted, feeling shy. "I, too, have a dream: to become so powerful that my daughter I will definitely have someday doesn't have to grow without a mother as I had to. That, when yet another world-threatening evil comes, I could send it packing without a heroic sacrifice, overpowering it in an epic struggle of grit and will to return back to her, alive."
Nami froze at those words, her empty eyes staring into space. Luffy cast a worried glance at her. Overcoming her shock, Nami narrowed her eyes thinking over something furiously. She then balled her fists with a look of grim determination. But never said anything out loud.
"I got it!" Luffy grinned. "You are dreaming of becoming the best battle mom in the world!" He offered a hand. "A cool dream! Come with us!"
"Well... I will do my best... captain!" She smiled feeling a mountain falling off her shoulders from his smile. "I must warn, tho, that my disposition is unbearable at times and that practice had shown that I am still bad at working in a team. I mean, I had been heroing solo all my life, now re-learning but haven't progressed much."
"We all learn as we go!" Luffy shared philosophically as he picked his nose with such a wise look it made Shantae snicker involuntarily.
"Welcome aboard!" Nami smiled. "Now, at least, I won't be the only girl in the crew."
The sky ahead was becoming shrouded with gray clouds. But to Shantae, the entire world was sparkling with renewed hope.
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
2019. Last correction March 14, 2025. Translated to English Feb 2025.
d20 dice rolls in this chapter: none.
Aithor's note #1: Royale Nelson's rank is commodore (准将 / junsho) while his position is fleet commander (提督 / teitoku), dictionary translation to English gives "commodore" or... ta-daaam... "admiral"!
This translation quirk introduced so much chaos into early fansubs and canon interpretations. In reality he is no admiral, of course. A commodore is above a captain but below even rear admiral.
Author's note #2: one of my motivations is translating everyterm or name to Russian myself and, screw fansubs or official translations. I then translate the resulting mess back to English trying to revert it (one of the effects, the concept of "nakama" dissolves into context, you can't translate it literally). If I miss something somewhere and write, say, "sea watch" instead of "marines", poke me in the comments.
Author's note #3: the number system, for both the Japanese and the Turkic peoples, is based off ten thousand instead of one thousand. Meaning the japanese system used in the One Piece world is more familiar to Shantae than our western one.
"Man", the same as Turkic "tumen" is 10000 (English "myriad"). One man Beri is roooughly one hundred USD (because Beri is a fantasy counterpart of the Japanese Yen, (o) 100 JPY/USD at the moment the story began).
"Ohku", or man squared, is 100 million in our system. The sum Arlong was demanding from Nami was symbolically round, one ohku Beri ((o)one million dollars).
Currently, Luffy's bounty is 3000 man Beri—or 30 millions.
Author's note #4: Sequin Land's system (authorial fiat) is a pile of non-metric units. Cubit is 53 centimeters, fathom is 172 centimeters, mile is 1749 meters (3300 cubits)
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)