The air itself screamed as Marya's Void-Mist engulfed the sea monster, the corrupted leviathan thrashing in her nebulous grip. Her form flickered between shadow and silver, the unstable fusion of her Devil Fruit and the Void tearing at the seams of reality. The beast's scales sizzled where her mist touched them, disintegrating into ash that rained down onto Lago de la Serpiente, now a churning cauldron of black water and molten Current.
Law stood atop a crumbling pillar. His Room expanded to its limits—a cerulean dome throbbing with strain. Sweat dripped down his temples as he calculated trajectories, his amber eyes tracking the beast's erratic movements. "Marya! Left flank—now!"
She obeyed, her mist surging to intercept the monster's lunge toward the Polar Tang. The Void-Mist clashed with the beast's Void-tainted hide, a collision of hungers. The air rippled, warping light into grotesque spirals as the two forces devoured each other.
"Captain! The hull's buckling!" Jean Bart's roar carried over the chaos, his cannon blasts barely denting the beast's remaining scales.
Bepo clung to the helm, his fur singed. "M-Marya! Law! Hurry!"
The beast roared, its remaining eye blazing with feral malice. It whipped its tail, sending a tsunami crashing into the Tang. The sub groaned, its patched hull screeching as water flooded the engine room. Shachi and Penguin scrambled to seal the breach, their shouts swallowed by the storm.
"Law—!" Marya's voice fractured, her mist thinning. The Void veins on her arms pulsed like live wires, spreading toward her heart. "I can't… hold it!"
"You don't have to hold it," Law snarled, his nodachi flashing. "Redirect it. Into the Current!"
He slashed the air, his ROOM: Spatial Tear ripping a jagged rift beside the beast—a gateway to the parallel dimension where he'd trapped the Void. "Now, Marya! Feed it!"
She screamed, her mist surging into the rift. The beast writhed, half its body dragged into the abyss, but its Void-corrupted claws anchored it to reality. The ground quaked, the temple ruins collapsing into the lake as the Primordial Current boiled beneath them.
"It's not… enough!" Marya gasped, her human form flickering into view, blood trickling from her nose.
Law's mind raced. The Ocēlōtl Orb's remnants—the celestial brass shards embedded in the temple pillars. "Tepec! The chant! Now!"
The elder lunged, slamming his staff into a glyph-carved stone. Xochi joined him, her voice rising in the ancient tongue, the words resonating with the Current. The remaining brass shards glowed, their light piercing the Void-Mist.
"Marya—let go!" Law commanded.
She did.
The Void-Mist detonated.
The explosion was silent.
For a heartbeat, the world inverted—light sucked into darkness, sound stripped to a vacuum. Then, with a thunderclap that shattered the remaining pillars, the beast unmade itself. Its body disintegrated into fractal ash, its roar dissolving into a guttural whimper as the Void rift snapped shut.
Marya collapsed, her mist-form solidifying into trembling flesh. Law caught her, his Room flickering out as the last of his strength waned.
"Captain! MARYA!" Bepo's wail cut through the ringing silence.
The Tang listed dangerously, its hull half-submerged, but intact. Jean Bart and the crew staggered onto the deck, their faces streaked with soot and relief.
Ciela knelt beside Aerion's broken macuahuitl, her hands shaking. "It's… over?"
"No," Tepec rasped, staring at the lake. The Primordial Current still churned, its surface now scarred with spirals of Void-black. "The rift is sealed, but the Current is wounded. The corruption… it leaves a stain."
The Polar Tang creaked like an old man's bones as Law and Marya limped aboard, the sub's hull half-submerged and streaked with Void-black scorch marks. Jean Bart and Ixtli had already organized a repair chain—Ground Dwellers passed salvaged celestial brass plating to Shachi and Penguin, who welded it haphazardly over gaping holes. The air smelled of burnt seaweed and triumph.
Ixtli clapped Law's shoulder with a force that nearly toppled him. "The prophecy!" the warrior boomed, his obsidian armor glinting with flecks of Void residue. " 'Outsiders with shadows in their hearts shall break the chains or become them.' You broke them, surgeon! My people will sing of this day for generations!" Behind him, Ground Dwellers raised their spears, chanting "Tlalocan's Storm!" as Bepo awkwardly attempted a folk dance with Nenetl.
Tepec and Xochi approached, the elder's staff now topped with a shard of the shattered Ocēlōtl Orb. "You've given us a future," Tepec said, bowing deeply. "Even… a wounded one." He gestured to the lake, where the Primordial Current swirled with inky spirals—a festering scar where the Void had bitten deep.
"That 'wound' could unravel your island in a decade," Law snapped, wiping engine grease off his nodachi. "Your 'prophecy' didn't mention that, did it?"
Xochi shrugged, her spectacles cracked but her grin intact. "Prophecies are like Sky Riders: vague and prone to pecking. But the Current endures. We'll adapt. After the feast!" She motioned to a group of Ground Dwellers hauling casks of Tlaloc's Fire—a fermented brew made from volcanic yeast that could, according to Shachi, "melt a Marine's boots."
Marya collapsed onto a crate, her Void-scarred arm trembling as she reached for a cask. "Finally. Food."
"No one's celebrating until the Tang's seaworthy," Law growled, though his protest died as Penguin lobbed a roasted ash-eel at his head.
*****
Ciela lingered at the lake's edge, her gaze scanning the debris. Aerion's body wasn't among the wreckage. Her stomach churned—relief? Guilt?—until a gurgling cough drew her to the shallows.
Aerion dragged himself onto the rocks, his left leg mangled, his armor reduced to a corroded breastplate. The once-proud Sky Lord looked like a half-drowned crow, his remaining eye bloodshot but blazing. "You… survived," he rasped.
"Disappointed?" Ciela crouched, tossing him a strip of eel. "Your 'fallen sky' needs a bath."
Aerion swatted the eel away. "I need… a bird."
"You are a bird. A soggy one." She whistled sharply, and a sky rider swooped down—its wing singed but functional. "Take him to the cliffs. And drop him if he gets chatty."
Aerion glared but didn't resist as the bird gripped his shoulders. "This isn't over, girl. The Current remembers."
"It'll remember you as the guy who lost to a submarine," Ciela called after him.
*****
The Tlalocan Citadel blazed under a canopy of bioluminescent vines, their turquoise glow casting ripples over the stepped pyramids and obsidian courtyards. The air thrummed with the beat of star-iron drums and the sizzle of roasting ash-eels, their smoky aroma mingling with the tang of Tlaloc's Fire—a fermented brew strong enough to, as Shachi put it, "make a Marine Admiral weep for his mother."
Law, arms crossed and brow furrowed, stood at the edge of the festivities, his nodachi resting on his shoulder. "This is a waste of time. The Tang's hull is held together by seaweed and hope."
Marya, already halfway through her third tankard, slung an arm around his shoulders. Her void-scarred hand left a faint smolder on his coat. "Relax, Surgeon of Death. Even gods need a day off. Besides—" She gestured to Bepo, who was being paraded atop a litter by Ground Dweller children, his fur adorned with garlands of molten-glass flowers. "—Bepo's a cultural icon now."
The Citadel's plaza was a riot of color and chaos. Ixtli, shirtless and gleaming with ceremonial ash, led a troupe of warriors in a Dance of the Primordial Current, their movements mimicking the serpentine swirl of the lake's energy. Penguin and Shachi had been roped into the performance, their attempts at "serpentine grace" resembling seasick seagulls.
"They're butchering sacred art!" Xochi laughed, her scholar's robes traded for a feathered headdress that doubled as a serving platter. She thrust a clay cup into Law's hands. "Drink. It's rude to sulk at a salvation feast."
Law sniffed the murky liquid. "This smells like a swamp."
"Tastes like one too!" Jean Bart called out, already red-faced and arm-wrestling three Ground Dwellers at once.
The feast table groaned under Lunarian delicacies: Volcano-roasted tapir: Crispy skin glazed with honeyed magma. Star-iron skewers: Meat so tender it "melted like a liar's promise." Crystallized Current clusters: Dessert rocks that crackled with energy, making diners' hair stand on end.
Marya, now experimenting with her Void-Mist, accidentally turned a platter of eels into a cloud of ash. "Oops. Appetizer's… ambient now."
Ciela, sporting a Sky Rider cloak (stolen, she insisted, "for irony"), dragged Aerion into the plaza. The deposed Sky Lord, leg splinted and pride in tatters, grumbled into his drink. "Celebrating with Ground Dwellers. How mortifying."
"Says the guy who lost to a submarine," Ciela shot back, tossing him a roasted root vegetable shaped like a bird. "Eat your humiliation."
Bepo's "Coronation" reached its peak when the Ground Dwellers presented him with a Crown of the Stormborn—a headpiece welded from celestial brass and Void-blackened scales. "I-I don't deserve this!" Bepo stammered, as children placed a scepter (a repurposed plumbing pipe) in his paw.
"Nonsense!" Tepec boomed, clapping him so hard he toppled into a dessert cart. "You're the Fluffy Savior! The White Storm!"
Law, finally surrendering to the madness, slumped beside Marya. "We're never living this down."
"Better than being eaten by a god," she said, toasting him with a cup of Tlaloc's Fire. "Probably."
As night deepened, the crew stumbled back to the Polar Tang, laden with "gifts" (including a live ash-tapir that immediately ate Shachi's boot). Law paused at the gangplank, eyeing the horizon.
"Next time," Marya hiccuped, leaning on Eternal Eclipse, "let's save a quieter island."
"Next time," Law muttered, "we're leaving you ashore." But he smirked at the memory of Penguin's "serpent dance"—a victory, however absurd, etched into the New World's chaos.
The morning sun over Tlalocan Citadel felt like a personal affront. The Polar Tang's deck was littered with empty casks of Tlaloc's Fire, their sour aftertaste lingering in the air like a bad joke. Shachi lay sprawled under a tarp, moaning as a Ground Dweller child poked him with a ceremonial spear. Penguin had fashioned sunglasses from two charred eel skins, muttering, "Why's the sun so… loud?"
Law, nursing a headache that could split stone, glowered at the repair crew swarming the Tang. Ixtli barked orders, his obsidian armor swapped for a leather smith's apron, while Tepec and Xochi argued over a scroll detailing the sub's mangled engine schematics.
"The ballast pumps need celestial brass," Xochi said, her voice bright despite the chaos. "The kind the Lunarians forged in the Ceniza Catacombs."
"Catacombs?" Law's eye twitched. "You're joking."
"Afraid not," Tepec replied, tapping his staff on a corroded pipe. "The Catacombs are a maze of old foundries and burial vaults. But the parts there… they're untouched. Perfect."
Marya staggered up the gangplank, Eternal Eclipse slung over her shoulder. Her golden eyes were bloodshot, her void-scarred arm wrapped in a stolen Ground Dweller banner. "If I have to hear one more drumbeat, I'm turning this island into mist."
"Save the theatrics," Law snapped. "We're heading underground. Bepo, Jean Bart, Ikkaku—gear up."
Ikkaku, already elbow-deep in the engine, perked up. "Underground? I heard the Catacombs have pre-Void century alloy! Maybe even parts to stabilize Marya's…" She gestured vaguely toward Marya's submarine wreckage.
The Ceniza Catacombs yawned beneath the citadel, a throat of basalt stairs choked with vines and the skeletal remains of Lunarian sentry golems. Bioluminescent fungi coated the walls, their sickly green glow revealing murals of winged figures offering molten brass to a volcano. Xochi traced the glyphs, translating: "Here lies the forge of Xolotl, where fire and shadow wed…"
Bepo clung to Law's coat, ears flat. "C-Captain… it smells like dead people and motor oil."
"Perfect for scrap," Ikkaku chirped, wielding a wrench like a mace.
The group pressed deeper, dodging pressure plates that triggered obsidian blade traps and pits of stagnant Current. Jean Bart kicked aside a golem's skull, its hollow eyes flickering with residual energy. "This place is a graveyard with a warranty."
At the heart of the Catacombs, they found the Forge of Xolotl—a cavernous chamber lined with anvils of celestial brass and racks of rusted tools. Marya paused beside a mural of a Lunarian smith engulfed in Void-Vapor, her scarred arm throbbing in sync with the faded glyphs.
"The corruption wasn't always a curse," Tepec murmured. "The Lunarians tried to weaponize it. Until it ate them."
"Charming," Law said, eyeing a massive gear lodged in the ceiling. "Ikkaku—will that work?"
"Only if we can dislodge it without bringing the roof down," she replied, already scaling a corroded ladder.
As Ikkaku worked, Marya drifted to a stone sarcophagus, its lid carved with a winged figure clutching a sword eerily similar to Eternal Eclipse. "Family reunion?" she quipped, though her voice wavered.
A low growl rumbled through the chamber. From the shadows emerged a Void-twisted golem, its obsidian body oozing black sludge, Lunarian wings mangled into serrated blades. Bepo yelped, diving behind Jean Bart.
"I'll distract it!" Law's Room flared, teleporting the golem's strike into a wall.
Marya grinned, Void-Mist coiling around her blade. "Let's see how you like getting erased."
The fight was chaos. Jean Bart's cannon blasts ricocheted off the golem's hide, while Ikkaku hurled tools like grenades. Bepo, in a rare burst of courage, tackled the golem's leg, shouting, "N-Nobody wrecks our sub!"
Law finally landed a Tact: Amputate, severing the golem's core. It collapsed, dissolving into a pool of Void-tar that hissed ominously.
Ikkaku whooped, cradling the salvaged gear. "This'll buff out! And look—" She held up a collection of random gears and parts. "For your… vessel."
Marya smirked, looking over her shoulder, "Not bad, mechanic."
Tepec bowed. "The Current thanks you."
As they ascended, Law glanced back at the mural—the smith's face now eerily resembled Marya's.
"Next time," Marya said, stretching her arms overhead, "let's loot somewhere with better lighting."
Bepo nodded fervently. "And less dead people!"
Above ground, the Tang awaited, its hull gleaming with fresh celestial brass.
The Polar Tang hummed to life, its rebuilt engines purring with the vigor of a sea king on a caffeine binge. Ikkaku, grease smeared across her cheeks like war paint, emerged from the engine room with a manic grin. "Celestial brass? More like celestial badass! These babies could outrun a tsunami!" She slapped the hull, which emitted a resonant gong that startled a flock of ash-sparrows into flight.
The crew cheered—Shachi and Penguin performing a jig that involved far more hip thrusts than rhythm—until Law cut through the revelry with a blade-sharp question: "Great. Now, how do we get out of this crater?"
The celebration died. The Tang floated in the center of Lago de la Serpiente, a bowl of black water ringed by cliffs that loomed like fossilized giants. Above, Sky Riders circled like vultures, though notably fewer since Aerion's "retirement."
Xochi unfurled a Lunarian star-map scribbled on volcanic parchment, its edges singed from centuries in a forge. "The ancients didn't just build cities—they built plumbing. There's a tunnel at the lake's floor, a direct line to the open sea!" She tapped a glyph of a serpent swallowing its tail. "Used to funnel offerings to Tlaloc. Now it'll funnel us."
Marya peered over her shoulder. "Offerings? Like gold? Jewels? Functional steering?"
"Mostly virgins and fermented squid," Xochi admitted.
Submerging the Polar Tang felt like descending into the gullet of a colossal sea beast, the water pressing in with a suffocating embrace. The metallic groan of the hull echoed through the cabin as the sub's floodlights flickered to life, slicing through the murk to reveal a haunting panorama. Below lay the drowned corpse of a once-mighty civilization, a Lunarian city frozen in its death throes by volcanic fury. The crew pressed against the portholes, their breaths fogging the glass as they gaped at the spectacle.
The lake's depths were a liquified nightmare, a surreal blend of collapsed step pyramids, their terraces now jagged and skeletal, looming like broken teeth. Bioluminescent coral clung to the ruins, glowing in spectral hues of cerulean and viridian that pulsed faintly, as if whispering secrets to the intruders. The sub's lights refracted through the water, casting wavering shadows that made the coral seem alive—a flickering, electric tapestry that danced over the ruins.
Navigating the submerged streets, the Tang's hull scraped against obsidian cobblestones polished smooth by centuries of currents. The roads, once thronged with Lunarian processions, now writhed with sinuous, glass-toothed eels. Their translucent bodies shimmered like cracked crystal, fangs glinting as they darted toward the sub, drawn by the thrum of its engines. One collided with a porthole, its jagged maw snapping reflexively before vanishing into the gloom, leaving a streak of algae on the glass.
Amid the ruins, the skeletal remains of Lunarian nobles lay suspended in grotesque tableaus. Volcanic ash had encased them like macabre sculptures, their jeweled robes of gold and jade still vibrant beneath a shroud of gray. One figure, arm outstretched and fingers splayed, clutched a corroded ceremonial dagger—a futile attempt to ward off the pyroclastic doom. Another wore a headdress of iridescent quetzal feathers, miraculously intact, its colors bleeding into the water like liquid oil. The ash had preserved even their expressions: mouths twisted in silent screams, eye sockets wide with terror, as if the volcano's wrath had stolen their final breaths mid-flight.
Bepo flattened his ears, whining as his paw tapped the glass. "D-Did that statue just… move?"
Law didn't glance up from the sonar, though his jaw tightened. "It's a corpse, Bepo. Sit down before you dent the hull."
Marya smirked, tracing a finger over the porthole. "Relax, they've been dead for a thousand years." Unless you're scared of ghosts?"
Ikkaku snorted. "Says the woman who turned the galley spoon into mush last week."
As the sub drifted deeper, the ruins grew denser. A half-crumbled ziggurat bore carvings of winged figures offering treasures to a volcano—Tlaloc's gaping maw consuming jewels, ships, and even their own kin.
Nearby, a stone calendar wheel, etched with celestial alignments, lay toppled beside a shattered obsidian mirror. Its surface, once used to commune with the gods, now reflected only the Tang's mechanical bulk—a stark contrast to the ancient hubris that had built this city.
Jean Bart grunted, steering clear of a corroded bronze cannon half-buried in sediment. "Wouldn't want to wake up whatever's still down here."
Shachi gulped. "Too late. I'm pretty sure that eel just winked at me."
As the sub pressed onward, the water thickened with ash, swirling in eddies that glinted like stardust. Somewhere in the abyss, a distant, metallic clang reverberated—a remnant of Lunarian machinery, perhaps, still ticking in the depths. Or something less benign.
Bepo pressed his muzzle to a porthole. "C-Captain… that statue just winked at me!"
"That's a corpse, Bepo," Law said flatly.
"Corpse. Statue. Same difference when it's winking!"
Law's voice cut through the tension. "Eyes forward. This isn't a museum tour." But even he paused, just for a heartbeat, as the lights grazed a towering statue of a Lunarian king, his stone hand raised in benediction—or warning.
The Polar Tang descended further, leaving ripples in its wake, each bubble rising to the surface like a ghostly plea from the drowned world below.
As the Tang's lights swept over a colossal Poneglyph embedded in a temple wall, Marya slammed her palms on the controls. "Stop the sub! I need five minutes with that rock!"
Law didn't look up from his charts. "We're not sightseeing."
"It's not sightseeing—it's research!"
"Your research is an invitation to death. Now Move."
Marya brandished Eternal Eclipse, Void-Mist curling around the blade. "I'll turn the helm into a cheese platter."
"...Fine." Law tossed her a Den Den Mushi camera. "Take a picture. Hurry."
The Serpent's Throat tunnel was a claustrophobe's nightmare: a jagged, half-collapsed pipe lined with Lunarian reliefs of priests being digested by Tlaloc. The Tang scraped through, its hull squealing like a stepped-on seagull.
Jean Bart white-knuckled the helm. "If we die here, I'm haunting both of you."
The Current seized the Polar Tang with the feral glee of a child shaking a snow globe. One moment, the sub was gliding through the tunnel's gloom; the next, it was hurtling forward like a drunken cannonball, ricocheting off walls lined with Lunarian reliefs of screaming priests and molten serpents. The hull screamed in protest, grinding against jagged celestial brass pipes that hadn't seen maintenance since the Lunarians were vapor mid-meal.
Inside, chaos reigned. Shachi ricocheted off a bulkhead, his arms windmilling as he howled, "I DIDN'T CONSENT TO THIS ROLLERCOASTER! WHERE'S THE SAFETY BRIEFING?!" His voice was drowned out by the metallic SCREEEE of the sub shearing off a stalactite shaped disturbingly like a femur.
Penguin, green-faced and clinging to a overhead pipe, lost his battle with breakfast. He yanked a fire extinguisher off the wall, yelped "NOT THE TIME, BUDDY!" as it hissed foam at him mid-vomit, and promptly filled it with what remained of last night's Tlaloc's Fire stew. The stench—a unholy fusion of fermented squid and chemical mint—flooded the cabin.
Bepo wrapped himself around a support beam, his fur standing on end like a dandelion in a hurricane. "C-CAPTAIN! ARE WE DYING?!"
Law, strapped into the captain's chair with a harness made of belts and sheer spite, snarled, "Not if I can HELP IT—" as the sub barrel-rolled, flipping Jean Bart upside-down at the helm. The helmsman's beard brushed the ceiling as he roared, "WHO TAUGHT THIS CURRENT DRIVER'S ED?!"
Marya, meanwhile, cackled like a woman possessed, her Void-scarred arm braced against a wall as she rode the turbulence like a surfer. "C'MON, TANG! SHOW 'EM WHAT A REAL STORM LOOKS LIKE!" A stray wrench passed through her head, clanging off the wall; she didn't flinch.
The sub's lights flickered, strobing over Lunarian glyphs that flashed past the portholes—an ancient warning, perhaps, or a receipt for divine wrath. The walls narrowed, scraping the hull raw as the Current funneled them toward a pinprick of daylight.
Ikkaku, wedged in the engine room, screamed over the din, "IF WE SURVIVE, I'M INSTALLING SEATBELTS!"
"SEATBELTS WON'T FIX THIS!" Shachi retorted, before a sudden drop silenced him—and everyone else—as the Tang plunged into freefall. Stomachs lurched, tools floated midair, and Penguin's makeshift vomit-bucket erupted like a geyser.
Then—light.
The tunnel spat them into daylight… and straight over a 300-foot waterfall hidden behind the island's cliffs. The Tang pinwheeled through the air, Ikkaku whooping, "YEEHAW! ENGINE'S NEVER HAD A BETTER TEST DRIVE!"
Law muttered, "I hate this crew."
Then—impact.
They belly-flopped into the ocean, the impact rattling teeth and dignity. As the Tang bobbed to the surface, Bepo peered through the periscope. "Uh… Captain? There's a Navy ship. Like, right there."
Marya smirked. "Let's say hi."
The Marine vessel HMS Clueless had been idly patrolling for smugglers. Ensign Podge was mid-bite into a jelly donut when the Tang erupted from the depths like a kraken's sneeze.
"CAPTAIN!" he screamed, powdered sugar spraying. "SUB… SUBMARINE… FLYING SUBMARINE!"
Captain Dolf, a man whose mustache outweighed his IQ, squinted through his telescope. "That's the Polar Tang! The Surgeon of Death's ship! Sound the ala—"
The Tang crash-landed beside them, swamping the Clueless with a wave that left the Marines knee-deep in seawater.
Marya leaned over the railing, waving cheerfully. "Nice weather for a swim!"
Law facepalmed. "Just… sail. Now."
As the Tang vanished into the horizon, Xochi and Tepec watched from the cliffs. "They'll be back," Tepec said. "The Current weaves fate tighter than a noose."
"Let's hope not," Xochi laughed. "Next time, I'm charging them for the repairs."
In the Tang's galley, Marya studied the Poneglyph photo—a glyph of a Void-wrapped figure holding a sword. "Hey, Law. This looks like… me."
"Don't flatter yourself," he said, though his frown deepened.
Somewhere in the Deep, the Primordial Current chuckled.