The Polar Tang's docking bay buzzed with tension, the air thick with the acrid tang of welding fumes and the metallic bite of seawater. Marya's submarine loomed in its repair cradle like a gutted leviathan, its hull patched haphazardly with steel plates and optimism. The blue crystal—scavenged from Hanabira's ruins—glowed faintly on a workbench, its light reflecting in Ikkaku's narrowed eyes.
"This thing's a glorified paperweight," she muttered, wiping grease from her brow. "Low-grade, unstable… and it's leaching radiation. Perfect."
Law leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed. "It'll hold. For now."
"For now," Ikkaku mimicked under her breath, slotting the crystal into the sub's fractured core panel. The mechanism hissed, conduits flaring as energy pulsed through the sub's corroded veins.
Marya hovered nearby, her bandaged arm cradled against her chest. "Will it work?"
"Ask me after it doesn't blow up," Ikkaku snapped, tightening bolts with a pneumatic wrench.
The crystal clicked into place, its glow intensifying to a harsh azure. For a moment, the sub hummed—a deep, resonant vibration that rattled tools off nearby shelves.
"Stabilizing…!" Ikkaku shouted over the noise, fingers flying across a diagnostics screen. "Energy output at 60%… 70… 85—!"
The sub's lights flickered on, bathing the bay in an eerie cerulean hue. Jean Bart nodded, arms folded. "Hull integrity nominal. Navigation systems… online."
Shachi whooped, slapping Penguin's back. "Told you! Ikkaku's a genius!"
Marya exhaled, a ghost of a smile tugging her lips.
Then the crystal pulsed.
A sound like shattering glass split the air. The crystal's glow flared violently, arcs of blue lightning spiderwebbing across the hull. Alarms blared as smoke billowed from the core panel.
"Shut it down!" Law barked, lunging for the controls.
"Trying!" Ikkaku slammed her palm against an emergency vent. Steam erupted, scalding her forearm, but she held fast. "Coolant lines are fried! It's overloading—!"
Marya grabbed a fire extinguisher, blasting the panel. Frost spread across the metal, but the crystal's light only brightened, its core cracking like a frozen lake.
"Get back!" Jean Bart roared, shoving Marya aside as the panel exploded.
Shrapnel peppered the bay, embedding in walls and floor. The crystal, now a jagged shard, dimmed to a sickly gray.
Silence fell, broken only by the drip of coolant and Ikkaku's furious cursing.
Marya stared at the dead crystal, her reflection fractured in its lifeless surface. "So… that's it?"
Law knelt, plucking the shard from the wreckage. "Told you it was borrowed time."
Ikkaku kicked a toolbox, sending wrenches clattering. "We need a real power source. Not this scrap."
"Sabaody," Law said, rising. "The black market there sells Marine-grade cores. If we're fast, we can—"
"If," Marya interrupted, her voice brittle. "And if we're not?"
Law pocketed the crystal shard, its edges glinting. "Then your sub becomes a coffin. Choose."
Bepo peeked from behind a support beam, clutching a first-aid kit. "Um… anyone need bandages?"
Penguin slumped against the wall, nursing a gash on his temple. "Just my pride."
The Polar Tang's docking bay hummed with the strained silence of a decision deferred. Marya's submarine sat dormant in its cradle, its patched hull still smoldering faintly from the failed crystal installation. The air reeked of scorched metal and smoldered, mingling with the salt tang of seawater seeping through the bulkheads. Law stood with his back to the sub, arms crossed, while the crew clustered around a map of the New World on the workbench.
Ikkaku slammed a wrench onto the bench, her voice sharp with frustration. "We're wasting time! That sub's a ticking bomb without a proper core. One more surge, and it'll take half the Tang with it!"
Marya leaned against the sub's hull, her bandaged arm cradled close. The void veins had receded, but her skin still bore a sickly pallor. "The Dawnless City's alignment is in ten days. If we miss that window, we lose our shot for a century. My mother's notes—"
"—could be garbage," Shachi interrupted, uncharacteristically serious. "No offense, but we've got Syndicate assassins crawling up our stern and a sub that's one spark from becoming a reef. Maybe we fix the death trap before chasing ghosts?"
Law's voice cut through the tension. "The sub's useless without coordinates to the City. And the City's useless if the World Government buries it deeper." He tapped the map, pointing to a stretch of ocean in the west. Runes from Elisabeta's notebook overlaid the map like a compass. "We go now. Repair the sub later."
Penguin whistled. "So we're just… leaving this hunk of junk half-alive?"
"Junk?" Marya bristled, pushing off the hull. "This 'junk' carried me through exploding islands and a kraken attack!"
"And now it's held together by duct tape and spite," Ikkaku muttered.
Law ignored the squabble, locking eyes with Marya. "You said the City holds answers. About the World Government. About your mother. If we wait, Casimir or the Syndicate gets there first. Your call."
Marya's gaze flickered to Eternal Eclipse, propped against the wall. Its obsidian blade drank the room's light, the crimson runes whispering promises she couldn't yet decipher. Vaughn's face flashed in her mind—"Guilt's a luxury."
She exhaled sharply. "Fine. We go. But when this blows up—" she jabbed a finger at the sub, "—you're explaining to Mihawk why his daughter's stranded."
Law smirked. "Deal."
Bepo raised a tentative paw. "Um… what about the radiation leak?"
"Seal it," Law ordered. "Buy us a week."
Ikkaku groaned but grabbed her toolkit, muttering curses as she welded a steel plate over the Whisper's cracked core. Sparks rained down, casting jagged shadows as Shachi and Penguin hauled crates of supplies for the journey.
Marya lingered, tracing her mother's handwritten coordinates. Titans' bones. Void's cradle. The words thrummed in her veins: a dirge and a dare.
"Regretting it already?" Law asked, quieter now.
She didn't look up. "Just wondering how many ghosts we'll meet."
He adjusted his hat, the light carving his face into sharp angles. "Only the ones we bring."
The Polar Tang's control room was a cacophony of clattering scrolls, flickering dials, and the faint smell of Bepo's nervous sweat. Marya stood at the center, clutching her mother's notebook like a holy text, while the Heart Pirates swarmed around the submarine's ancient navigation panel—a hulking brass-and-gear monstrosity that looked like it had been salvaged from a steam-powered whale.
"Okay, geniuses," Marya said, squinting at the cryptic symbols in the notebook. "The coordinates are… here. Maybe. If 'Titans' bones' means 'the big spinny thing near the whirlpool.'"
Bepo hovered over the controls, his polar bear paws trembling. "Um… the Tang's nav system uses numbers, not… poetry."
Shachi leaned over Marya's shoulder, squinting. "Is that a doodle of a squid? Or a map?"
"It's art," Marya snapped. "My mother had flair!"
Penguin jabbed a finger at a smudged rune. "Pretty sure that's just a coffee stain. Look, there's a tiny 'Vaccaria' written here—wait, no, that's a crumb."
Law leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the circus unfold. "Remind me why I agreed to this."
"Because you're secretly a romantic," Marya said, tossing him a grin. "Now help us translate 'Void's cradle' into latitude."
Bepo tentatively tapped the navigation panel's keys, which emitted a series of indignant clangs, as if offended. A rusty Den Den Mushi fused to the console yawned awake, its shell painted with fading Marine insignia.
"INPUT ERROR," it droned in a voice like grating gravel. "PLEASE CONSULT MAP. OR DON'T. I DON'T CARE."
Marya blinked. "Your nav system's… sassy."
"It's pre-owned," Law muttered.
Shachi spun a giant brass wheel labeled "MYSTIC EAST?" and the Tang lurched violently, sending Penguin face-first into a shelf of star charts.
"COURSE CORRECTED. ENJOY THE SCENERY. OR NOT."
"Scenery?!" Penguin spat out a parchment scrap. "We're underwater!"
Literal Interpretations
Marya stabbed a finger at the notebook. "Okay, 'Titans' bones'—maybe it's a rock formation shaped like a ribcage?"
Shachi brightened. "Or actual bones! Like, a giant skeleton! We could sell the teeth!"
Bepo whimpered. "Captain, the system's asking for a 'celestial password'…?"
Law pinched the bridge of his nose. "Try 'Rocinante.'"
The Den Den Mushi snorted. "INCORRECT. HINT: IT'S IRONIC."
"Ironic?!" Marya threw her hands up. "How about 'WorldGovernmentSucks'?!"
The console chimed. "ACCEPTED. WELCOME, REBEL SCUM."
The crew froze.
"…Well," Law said, deadpan. "That works."
The navigation screen flickered to life, projecting a holographic map… accompanied by a sudden blast of accordion music.
"NAVIGATION ENGAGED. PREPARE FOR ADVENTURE. OR REGRET."
The Tang's interior lights shifted to neon purple, and a disco ball descended from the ceiling, spinning lazily.
Penguin stared. "Why… is there a disco ball on a submarine?"
"Previous owner," Law said, as if that explained everything.
Shachi immediately grabbed a wrench as a microphone. "Ladies and germs, welcome to the Heart Pirates' Midnight Cruise!"
Marya snorted, hips swaying mockingly to the music. "Think Mihawk's ever busted a move under the sea?"
Law, against his will, cracked a smirk. "Not unless you count 'brooding' as a dance."
Even Bepo giggled, his paws tapping involuntarily.
The map finally stabilized, highlighting a route through a trench labeled "TITAN'S GRAVE." Marya pumped her fist. "See? Told you we'd crack it!"
Then the console spat out a ticket.
"ONE-WAY TRIP TO DAWNLESS CITY. NO REFUNDS. GOOD LUCK, SUCKERS."
The crew stared.
"Well," Law said, adjusting his hat. "At least it's honest."
As the Tang dove deeper, the disco ball still spinning, Marya slumped into a chair. "Your crew's weird, Trafalgar."
"Says the woman with a cursed sword and a pet void."
"Fair."
Bepo offered her a rice ball shaped like a star. "Snack?"
Marya took it, grinning. "Best navigator ever."
The Den Den Mushi sighed. "CUTE. NOW PLEASE STOP TOUCHING MY BUTTONS."
The Polar Tang hummed peacefully as it glided through the sunlit shallows of the Coral Crown, a vibrant reef system teeming with neon fish and bioluminescent critters. Marya lounged on the deck, polishing her kogatana—until a tiny, iridescent starfish, no bigger than her palm, flopped out of a seaweed bundle and latched onto the blade's hilt with surprising speed.
"Hey! Give that back!" Marya yelped, but the starfish had already vanished into a ventilation duct, her prized dagger clutched in one sticky arm.
"Something wrong?" Law called from the navigation room, not looking up from his charts.
"Just a… minor theft," Marya grumbled.
By sunset, the crew realized they had a stowaway. Law's beloved spotted hat went missing. Shachi's gold-plated lighter disappeared from his pocket. Even Bepo's favorite fish-shaped hairclip vanished. The culprit? A glittering starfish with a knack for stealth and a taste for bling.
"It's mocking us," Law hissed, staring at security footage of the starfish carting off his hat with five-armed glee.
"It's adorable," Penguin argued, zooming in on the screen. "Look at its little sparkly trail!"
Marya slammed her fist on the table. "It has my father's kogatana! That thing's older than your submarine!"
Bepo sniffled. "And my clip… it was a gift from my mom…"
Law pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're being outwitted by a sea star."
The crew cobbled together a plan. Using a trail of foil-wrapped candies (Shachi's sacrifice), they lured the starfish into the engine room, where its stolen treasure hoard glittered in a makeshift nest of wiring and seaweed. But the starfish guarded its loot like a dragon, clinging to Marya's kogatana and hissing via bioluminescent Morse code.
"This calls for diplomacy," Penguin declared, emerging from the storage closet in a rubber squid costume he'd "borrowed" from a past mission. The tentacles flopped limply, one eye dangling by a thread.
Shachi snorted. "You look like a deflated birthday balloon."
"Silence!" Penguin adjusted the costume's snorkel mask. "I speak Squid now."
He crouched, waving rubber tentacles in what he hoped was a universal gesture of peace. The starfish pulsed skeptically.
"We come in friendship!" Penguin intoned. "Return our shinies, and… uh… we'll give you… shinier shinies!"
The starfish blinked (or seemed to), then hoisted Law's hat like a flag and scampered up a pipe.
"Diplomacy failed," Penguin sighed. "Plan B?"
What followed was a slapstick siege. Shachi dangled from the ceiling, trying to fish the starfish out with a pasta strainer. Bepo "accidentally" triggered the sprinklers, flooding the room. Marya army-crawled through ducts, swearing as the starfish taunted her with her own dagger.
Law, fed up, activated his Room and teleported directly into the nest—only to find himself eye-to-eye with the starfish, which had tucked his hat onto one arm like a tiny umbrella.
"Give. It. Back."
The starfish glowed rainbow.
In the end, it was Bepo who brokered peace. He offered the starfish his last rice ball—shaped like a heart—and a shiny copper button from his overalls. The starfish, mollified, traded the button for Marya's kogatana, Law's hat, and Bepo's clip. Shachi's lighter remained MIA.
"Compromise," Law muttered, dusting off his hat. "How… dreadful."
Marya sheathed her dagger. "I'm naming it Glint. It's ours now."
"What?"
"Look at it!" She pointed as Glint perched proudly on Bepo's head, glowing like a disco ball. "It's already part of the crew."
Glint's reign began immediately. It "redecorated" the control panel with stolen screws, hid in Ikkaku's toolbox to nap, and developed a vendetta against Shachi's socks. Law pretended to loathe it, but the crew noticed his hat went untouched afterward.
As the Tang dove toward the Dawnless City, Glint clung to the periscope, a tiny, glittering sentinel.
"Worst. Mascot. Ever," Shachi grumbled, sockless.
Penguin adjusted his squid costume. "Nah. He's family."
Bepo nodded, feeding Glint another button. "The best family."