The Polar Tang cut through the cerulean waves of the New World, its hull gleaming under a sun that seemed to wink conspiratorially at the chaos brewing aboard. Marya Zaleska, her raven hair whipping in the salt-kissed breeze, brandished a yellowed parchment like a conqueror hoisting a war banner. "Treasure!" she declared, her golden eyes alight with mischief. "And it's mine."
Law, slumped against the sub's railing with a medical journal in hand, didn't glance up. "It's a child's doodle. That 'X' is literally inside a cartoon shark."
"Sharks are symbols of opportunity!" Marya retorted, jabbing a finger at the map's crudely drawn island labeled Giggling Atoll. "Besides, Bepo confirmed it!"
Bepo, mid-sneeze into a fish-shaped cloud of his own fur, froze. "I, uh… said it might be a code? Maybe?"
Too late. Shachi and Penguin had already unfurled a banner reading "TREASURE OR TREASON!" and were arm-wrestling over who'd get to wear the "official treasure hat" (a colander with a fake jewel glued to it).
Giggling Atoll was a kaleidoscope of absurdity. Palm trees drooped under the weight of coconuts painted like clown faces. The sand sparkled with glitter—actual glitter, which Ikkaku immediately pocketed ("For tactical shimmer!"). The air smelled of caramelized seaweed and salted party snacks.
"This place is on three Marine avoidance lists," Law muttered, stepping over a banana peel that spontaneously combusted into confetti. "For psychological safety."
The locals, a tribe of wiry, snickering kids in polka-dot bandanas, greeted them with a chorus of whoopee cushion symphonies. Their elder, a wizened woman named Granny Chuckles, explained through giggles: "Treasure maps? Oh, we plant 'em in drunk pirates' pockets! Last bunch dug up a crate of silly string!"
Marya, undeterred, waved her map. "This one's different. I feel it."
"You 'felt' that cursed amulet last week," Law said. "It turned Penguin into a turnip."
"A very durable turnip!" Penguin called, still peeling faintly green.
The "X" led to a cove guarded by stone statues… with googly eyes. Shachi tripped a wire, unleashing a tidal wave of rubber ducks. Bepo, attempting to be the voice of reason, whispered, "This feels… personal."
But Marya, with an aspiring optimism, unearthed the chest with a flourish. Inside: 237 rubber chickens, a whoopee cushion throne, and a note: "Congratulations! You're officially gullible! —The Giggling Guild."
Silence.
Then Marya burst out laughing, a sound rare enough to make the seabirds pause. "This," she said, tossing Law a chicken, "is the greatest haul in pirating history."
Law stared at the chicken. It stared back, beady eyes full of judgment. "…Why?"
"Because," Marya grinned, unsheathing Eternal Eclipse with a shing that made the nearby coconuts blush, "now we duel."
The crew formed a makeshift arena. Shachi bet three barrels of rum on Marya. Bepo bet a spoon (he misunderstood the rules).
Round 1: Marya, wielding two rubber chickens like nunchucks, spun a whirlwind of absurdity. "Behold! The Winged Dragon of Raucous Fortune!"
Law, using his Room, teleported feathers into her hair. "This is beneath me."
Round 2: Marya retaliated by launching a chicken via a makeshift catapult (Ikkaku's idea). It hit Law square in the face, emitting a squawk that sounded suspiciously like "Loser."
"Cheap tactics," Law growled, summoning a Tact to swap Marya's chicken with a live seagull.
Final Round: The duel devolved into a feather-filled melee. Bepo, sneezing, accidentally activated the whoopee cushion throne, its cacophony startling a nearby school of narwhals into a synchronized dance.
Even Law cracked a smile—a small one.
As the Polar Tang sailed away, Marya draped in rubber chickens like a feathery cloak, Granny Chuckles tossed her a final gift: a conch shell that emitted raucous laughter. "For the next gullible soul!"
"Treasure isn't about gold," Marya mused, eyeing Law's chicken-stuck hat. "It's about stories."
Law sighed. "It's about head trauma."
But that night, the crew discovered the chickens' secret: their squawks repelled Sea Kings. ("See?!" Marya crowed, as a confused serpent fled from a rubber beak.)
And the whoopee cushion? It saved them three weeks later, distracting a Marine admiral long enough for a clean escape.
As Giggling Atoll vanished over the horizon, Law scribbled in his journal: "Note: Never underestimate idiots… or poultry."
Shachi, now the self-proclaimed Rubber Chicken King, belched a victory tune. "Next stop: Balloon Animal Island!"
*****
The Polar Tang bobbed gently on the cerulean swells of the New World, its metallic hull glinting under a sun that seemed to smirk at the promise of chaos. The Heart Pirates had declared it a "self-care day"—a term Ikkaku had learned from a Very Serious Wellness Pamphlet (stolen from a Marine spa). Marya, perched on the sub's prow with her cursed sword Eternal Eclipse strapped to her back, scoffed at the notion. "Fishing," she muttered, "is just piracy for people who fear adventure."
Law, hunched over a medical text titled 101 Uses for Sea Cucumber Mucous, didn't look up. "Says the woman who mistook a Sea King for a 'floating island' last week."
"It waved at me!"
Bepo, nervously adjusting a fishing rod twice his height, squeaked, "Maybe we'll catch dinner?"
"Or a curse!" Shachi crowed, rigging a net lined with firecrackers. "Penguin owes me 10,000 Beri if I land a kraken!"
"You said clam!" Penguin protested, tripping over a bucket of chum.
Marya, bored by the crew's mundane efforts, summoned a wisp of her Void-Mist—a swirling, ashy haze that danced over the waves. "This is how you fish," she declared, the mist coiling into spectral bait. The water rippled, then glowed.
Up rose a fish.
Not just any fish.
A seventy-foot-long, glitter-scaled leviathan with fins like stained glass and a voice like a drunken opera singer. Its scales shimmered in prismatic bursts, casting rainbows across the deck.
"That's… a Synthscale Siren," Law said, suddenly pale. "They're extinct."
"Correction," Marya grinned. "It's dinner."
The fish opened its mouth.
And sang.
The melody was a weaponized lullaby, a cascade of notes that bypassed eardrums and hijacked brainstems. Shachi dropped his firecrackers mid-fuse. Penguin's knees began to wobble. Bepo's pupils dilated into heart shapes.
"Not… cute…" Bepo slurred, already shuffling sideways.
Ikkaku, halfway through reinforcing the hull, marched out welding a harpoon… and immediately joined the conga line, humming off-key.
Marya, immune due to the Void-Mist's own feedback, blinked. "Huh. That's new."
Law, his Haki, and personal discipline barely insulating him, gripped his temples. "Fix. This."
The Siren's song swelled, its hypnotic rhythm reducing the crew to a shambling, seaweed-skirted conga procession. Shachi and Penguin—now crowned with kelp tiaras—argued between synchronized kicks.
"My legs are sculpted for this!" Shachi preened, nearly toppling into the brig.
"You look like a soggy flamingo!" Penguin retorted, his skirt "accidentally" catching fire.
Law, dodging Bepo's blissful waltz with a mop, spotted an accordion in a storage crate—a relic from a disastrous undercover mission.
"No," he told himself.
The Siren hit a high C.
"Fine."
Law's accordion skills were… experimental. The first notes sounded like a walrus in a blender. But as he tapped into his Ope-Ope power, the melody sharpened—a discordant counter-rhythm that frayed the Siren's hypnotic weave.
Marya, sensing an opening, lunged. Eternal Eclipse flashed, severing the Siren's song mid-chorus. The fish flopped, dazed, its glitter dimming to a mortified blush.
The crew collapsed in a heap of seaweed and shame.
"I'll… never dance again," Ikkaku groaned, plucking barnacles from her hair.
"Liar," Shachi said, still wearing the skirt.
The Synthscale Siren, it turned out, was no ordinary fish. Legends spoke of their songs guiding lost ships through the Calm Belt—until overfishing by World Nobles drove them to near extinction. This one, lured by Marya's Void-Mist, had mistaken the Polar Tang for a mate.
"So it's your fault," Law said, nursing a migraine.
"Our bond is special," Marya replied, feeding the fish a rubber chicken from their last escapade.
As the Siren dove back into the depths (warbling a farewell ballad), Shachi and Penguin resumed their debate.
"Admit it," Shachi posed, seaweed sash fluttering. "I rocked the skirt."
"You looked like a rabid jellyfish," Penguin said.
Law, scribbling in his journal, added a footnote: "Note: Ban accordions. And Marya."
As the Polar Tang submerged, the Siren's melody echoed through the hull. Shachi, still skirt-clad, sighed. "Next time… line dancing."
*****
The Polar Tang hummed with clandestine energy, its steel corridors strung with cobbled-together streamers and a banner reading "HAPPY BIRTHDYA BEPO!" in lopsided letters. Ikkaku, wielding a wrench like a conductor's baton, barked orders. "Shachi, the confetti cannon goes here! Penguin, stop eating the frosting!"
Bepo, the crew's beloved navigator and resident polar bear Mink, had been lured to the engine room under the guise of a "critical flux capacitor malfunction" (a lie so flimsy even the Sea Kings would've scoffed). Meanwhile, Marya Zaleska leaned against a bulkhead, her mist swirling lazily around her boots. "So. We're surprising him with… pastels?" she said, flicking a glitter-coated wrench.
Law, arms crossed and already regretting his life choices, muttered, "Just don't set anything on fire."
"No promises."
The centerpiece of the party was a piñata shaped like Bepo's head, painstakingly crafted by Shachi from papier-mâché and misplaced optimism. Marya, however, deemed it "insufficiently festive." With a flick of her wrist, her mist coiled around the piñata, transforming it into a shimmering dark orb etched with glowing crimson runes.
"What's it do?" Penguin asked, poking it with a spatula.
"Surprises," Marya said.
The first swing of Bepo's paw unleashed chaos.
The piñata exploded not with candy, but with live squid—iridescent, ink-spewing, and inexplicably magnetized to Shachi's hair. They flopped across the deck, their tentacles slapping party hats off heads and upturning a punch bowl filled with Ikkaku's "special" rum blend.
"THEY'RE GLOWING!" Bepo yelped, torn between awe and terror.
"THEY'RE DINNER!" Penguin yelled back, diving after one with a net and a ladle.
Shachi, now the human (ish) equivalent of a squid beacon, scrambled up a ladder—only to snag his foot in a net of "anti-gravity balloons" Ikkaku had rigged. Suspended midair, he flailed as squid latched onto his shirt, their suckers spelling "BEST MATE" in temporary ink.
"This is art!" Marya declared, summoning mist clones to herd the squid into a loose conga line.
Law, his yellow submarine hoodie now streaked with neon ink, activated his Room in a desperate bid for order. "I'm a surgeon, not a… squid wrangler."
Too late. Penguin had already commandeered the galley, his "Gourmet Squid Stew" recipe devolving into a culinary warzone. "Add paprika!" he shouted, dodging a tentacle. "Wait, is paprika red or blue?!"
Amid the bedlam, Bepo crouched behind a torpedo crate, his ears flattened. "I-I'm sorry! I ruined everything!"
"Nonsense," Marya said, materializing beside him with a cupcake (stolen from Law's secret stash). "Birthdays require chaos. It's scientific."
To prove her point, she jammed a party hat onto Law's head—a felt bear paw with a bell that jingled mercilessly. The crew froze. Even the squid paused mid-slap.
Law's eye twitched. "...Happy birthday, Bepo."
The resulting cheer nearly cracked the hull.
By nightfall, the squid had been corralled (half into the stew, half into the ocean), the ink scrubbed (mostly) from the walls, and Shachi peeled (gently) from the ceiling. The crew gathered in the mess hall, where Bepo's "cake" (a tower of rice balls glued with honey) awaited.
"Mihawk once told me birthdays are for fools," Marya mused, lobbing a rice ball at a retreating squid. "But fools have better stories."
Bepo, his fur still flecked with glitter, sniffled. "This is the best birthday ever."
Law, his hat now tilting precariously, sighed. "Next year, we're celebrating in silence."
The crew's laughter echoed through the Tang, a harmony even the squid couldn't disrupt.
As the Polar Tang dove into the depths, Bepo's new squid friend glowed faintly in the dark. Marya smirked at Law. "Next year—llama piñata."
*****
The Polar Tang hummed through the doldrums of the New World, its crew teetering on the edge of boredom-induced mutiny. Ikkaku, wielding a wrench like a scepter, declared war on the monotony: "We're hosting a talent show! Winner gets… uh… Bepo's secret honey stash!"
Bepo gasped, clutching his jar. "But that's for emergencies!"
"This is an emergency," Law muttered, his face buried in a medical tome titled 101 Ways to Survive Your Own Crew. "We're two days from eating Shachi's 'experimental jerky.'"
Marya, lounging atop a torpedo crate, smirked. "I'll participate. But only if I can use the Void-Mist."
Law's eye twitched. "No cursed fog. No explosions. No—"
"Too late!" Shachi crowed, juggling live grenades with the grace of a concussed seagull. "I'm opening the show!"
The "stage" was the sub's cramped mess hall, repurposed with a curtain of duct-taped hammocks. Jean Bart kicked things off with Extreme Napping, a feat of snoring so seismic it rattled loose rivets. His act climaxed with him sleepwalking into a bulkhead, leaving a Jean Bart-shaped dent. The crew awarded him a perfect 10/10 for structural damage.
Shachi's Grenade Juggling Extravaganza lasted precisely 4.2 seconds before a pineapple-shaped explosive slipped, ricocheting into the galley. Penguin, mid-bite into a rice ball, launched it back with a frying pan, yelling, "STRIKE!" The resulting blast charred Jean Bart's eyebrows—a fact the stoic giant acknowledged with a grunt and a thumbs-up.
Uni, being a perfectionist, unveiled Synchronized Swabbing, a meticulously choreographed dance with mops… until Clione, nerves frayed, tripped and transformed it into Synchronized Sopping. The crew cheered as the duo slid through suds, crash-landing in Hakugan's lap.
Marya's turn arrived. "Behold," she announced, summoning her Void-Mist, "The Theater of Shadows!" The fog billowed across the walls, projecting shimmering images of Law's childhood—specifically, a 12-year-old Trafalgar D. Water Law attempting (and failing) to swallow a sword at a Flevance street fair.
"Delete that," Law hissed, lunging for the mist.
"Too late!" Penguin howled, snapping a Den Den Mushi photo. "This's going on the next wanted poster!"
The crew roared as the montage continued: Law sneezing mid-surgery, Law tripping over his own cloak, Law crying over a dead goldfish named Captain Fluffy. Marya, grinning like a cat with a Den Den Mushi, shrugged. "Art is pain."
Bepo's Interpretive Dance began as a shy shuffle. Clutching a mop like a ballroom partner, he twirled, leaped, and pirouetted with a grace that defied his polar bear bulk. The dance morphed into a tragicomic epic: the mop became a foe, a friend, a lover lost to the Grand Line's tides.
By the finale, Bepo was airborne, mop aloft, howling a Mink war ballad. He landed in a split, tears streaming. "I… I call it 'The Agony of Unrequited Honey.'"
The crew erupted. Even Law clapped—once—before muttering, "We're never doing this again."
Bepo claimed his honey stash, sharing it in a rare act of Mink magnanimity. Law confiscated the Den Den Mushi photos (but not before Shachi sold copies to a News Coo). Marya, now the unofficial "Void-Mist director prodigy," plotted her next cinematic atrocity.
As the Polar Tang dove into the depths, Jean Bart snored in his dent-shaped bed, Hakugan's eyebrows smoldered faintly, and Bepo's mop stood enshrined in the corner like a sacred relic.
As the mess hall lights dimmed, Shachi grinned. "Next week—karaoke night!"
*****
The Polar Tang groaned as another cannonball struck its hull, the reverberations shuddering through the submarine's metal ribs like the death throes of a wounded beast. The dim emergency lights flickered, casting jagged shadows across the control room where Trafalgar Law stood, his amber eyes narrowed at the sonar display. Blips of hostile ships crowded the screen—Marine battleships, their hulls reinforced with sea-stone plating, cutting through the water with predatory accuracy.
Marya Zaleska leaned against the doorway, her obsidian blade, Eternal Eclipse, resting against her shoulder. The faint glow of its crimson runes pulsed in time with her breathing. "We're not outrunning them," she said, voice cool. "Surface the Tang. I'll handle the ships."
Law's jaw tightened. "There are six battleships, Marya. Even for you, that's—"
"Arrogance? Recklessness?" She smirked, though her golden-ringed eyes—so like her father's—remained hard. "Call it what you want. But if we stay submerged, they'll pound us into scrap."
Another impact. The Tang lurched, pipes bursting as seawater spewed into the corridor. Bepo's panicked voice crackled over the intercom: "Captain! The aft compartments are flooding!"
Law cursed. "Fine. Surface—but we do this together."
The Polar Tang breached like a steel whale gasping for air, its hatches hissing open to the cacophony of Marine alarms. The battleships encircled them, their cannons gleaming under the midday sun, each barrel trained on the vulnerable sub. At the lead ship's prow stood Vice Admiral Bastille, his seastone-tipped halberd glinting. "Heart Pirates!" he bellowed. "Surrender, or be erased from these waters!"
Marya stepped onto the deck, the salt-laced wind tugging at her raven hair. She didn't bother with a retort. Instead, she raised a hand—and the world blurred.
"Mist-Mist Fruit: Shroud of the Vanished."
A tidal wave of mist erupted from her fingertips, swallowing the Marine fleet in seconds. The fog was no ordinary vapor; it seethed, tendrils coiling like living things, corroding cannon barrels and choking the breath from gunners. Within the haze, Marya became a wraith, her form dissolving and reforming at will, Eternal Eclipse carving through steel and flesh alike.
Law didn't waste the distraction. "Room." His blue sphere expanded, engulfing the nearest battleship. With a flick of his fingers, the vessel twisted, its hull plates warping into grotesque sculptures before detonating in a shower of splinters. Marines screamed as they were bisected mid-air, their limbs teleported into the ocean depths.
Bastille roared, his Armament Haki flaring as he charged. Marya materialized before him, her blade meeting his halberd in a shower of sparks. "You're a fool," she hissed. "This island's rot is nothing compared to what I've faced."
Behind her, Law's voice cut through the chaos: "Tact." The remaining ships imploded, their masts snapping like twigs as gravity itself warped around them.
Silence.
The Tang's deck was scorched, its crew bruised but alive. Marya wiped blood from her lip, watching the last battleship slip beneath the waves. Bastille's unconscious form floated amid the wreckage, his pride as shattered as his ship.
Law exhaled, his shoulders sagging. "Next time, listen when I say it's too many."
Marya sheathed her sword, the void veins on her arms pulsing faintly. "Next time, don't doubt me."
Bepo peeked from the hatch, ears drooping. "Uh… we're still taking on water."
Shachi groaned. "Vacation. We need a vacation."
Above them, the sky burned crimson—a fitting backdrop for the carnage they'd wrought. And somewhere, far beyond the horizon, the gears of fate turned, whispering of greater storms to come.