The hidden base smelled of damp earth and mildew—a cavernous space beneath the canals, lit by flickering lanterns that cast long, wavering shadows across maps plastered to the walls. The air was thick with the scent of decaying metallic tang, the occasional drip of neon sludge from the ceiling sizzling where it struck metal.
Lotte's triumphant shout still hung in the air when the door burst open. Law stepped through first, his amber eyes scanning the room with clinical care. Behind him, Marya moved like a wraith, Eternal Eclipse humming faintly at her back. Bepo shuffled in, ears twitching at the scent of anxiety in the air, while Bram half-carried Dr. Visser, her lab coat stained pink with nectar and terror.
Willem Van der Zee looked up from the table, his gaunt face carved deeper with exhaustion. His gaze locked onto Dr. Visser, and for a moment, the room stilled.
"I see you found the lab," Willem said, voice like dry soil. "But why is she with you?"
Bram let out a sharp breath, dropping into a chair that groaned under his weight. "Because things didn't go according to plan. The lab's gone."
Lotte's grin returned, wild and bright. "That's good, right? One less poison factory!"
Klaas adjusted his cracked monocle, the lamplight catching the worry in his eyes. "Or it's a beacon. Destroying a SAD facility doesn't go unnoticed. Reinforcements will come."
Willem ignored them, stepping toward Dr. Visser. His voice, though quiet, cut through the tension. "Elsa. How are you?"
She trembled, fingers clutching at her sleeves. "Terrified," she whispered. "What happens now? What about my daughter?"
Before anyone could answer, the door slammed open again.
Uni, Clione, and Hakugan stumbled in, their clothes singed, their breaths ragged. Bepo's ears shot up. "Where—where's everyone else?!"
Clione collapsed against the wall, his staff clattering to the ground. "Captured. Jean Bart, Ikkaku, Shachi, Penguin—all of them."
Hakugan spat blood onto the floor. "Beast Pirates. Their captain—some horned bastard with maces—came out of nowhere."
Law's jaw flexed, the only sign of the storm beneath his calm. Marya, noted the way his fingers twitched toward Kikoku—once, twice—before stilling.
"Then we need a new plan," Law said, voice colder than ice.
Silence settled over the room, heavy as the island's poisoned sky.
*****
The Blood Dike reeked of charred wood and spilled SAD nectar, the air thick with the cloying sweetness of ruined experiments. Penguin, Shachi, Jean Bart, and Ikkaku sat bound back-to-back, their wrists lashed together with seastone-stitched rope that burned against their skin. The neon glow of the wrecked windmill painted their faces in grotesque hues, flickering like a dying pulse.
Akako Zinnia crouched in front of them, her oversized hammer planted in the sludge beside her. She tilted her head, twin ponytails swaying, her Baretto plush tucked under one arm.
"Where's your Captain?" she chirped, poking Penguin's nose with a grimy finger.
"Last I checked, babysitters don't get that info," Penguin shot back, grinning through a split lip.
"Ooooh!" Akako clapped, delighted. "Feisty!"
Shachi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Real scary. Can we skip to the part where you—"
A sharp CRACK cut him off as Captain Umeko Ozias backhanded an Overseer hard enough to send the man sprawling into the pink-tinged canal. The remaining Overseers flinched, their black clogs scraping against the damp stone.
Umeko's gaze was locked on the distant plume of fluorescent smoke still coiling into the sky—the remains of the lab. His jaw flexed, teeth grinding loud enough to hear.
"Kaido won't ignore this," he muttered, static prickling along his horns. "Not after Gossypium."
Amaru Valentine slinked up beside him, idly spinning a bullet between his fingers. "Problem, Captain?"
Umeko ignored him. Instead, he knelt in front of the prisoners, his amber eyes boring into Jean Bart's. "Why the Blood Dike?" he demanded, voice low. "What were you after?"
Silence.
Ikkaku spat to the side. "Scenic views."
Umeko exhaled through his nose, the scent of pollution sharpening. He stood, turning to the Senior Overseer—a gaunt man with a spider-sun brand seared into his cheek. "Why would pirates come here?"
The Overseer swallowed. "We—we confiscated their submarine."
A slow, devilish grin spread across Umeko's face.
Ozul Crow stepped forward, his katana Aetherius humming as constellations flickered along its edge. "The stars whisper of anchors cut loose," he intoned, monocle glinting. "Like a worthless chariot I drift in the night."
Umeko didn't hesitate. "Load them on the ship. Confiscate the sub." He turned, coat flaring. "We depart at once."
"Like hell!" Penguin thrashed against his binds. "Our Captain's gonna rip you apart!"
Shachi barked a laugh. "Yeah! You're dead!"
Umeko smirked. "That's the idea."
Jean Bart and Ikkaku exchanged a single, weighted glance.
Oh.
Oh no.
*****
The warship's hull scraped against Nieuw Bloemendaal's rotting docks, the sound like nails on bone. Vergo stepped onto the planks, his polished boots sinking slightly into wood softened by neon sludge. The air reeked of polluted burnt sugar, the wind carrying the distant groan of windmills pumping poison into the sky.
His gaze flicked to the horizon, where a black-sailed Beast Pirate vessel cut through the pink-tinged waves, a massive submarine in tow. Interesting. But not his concern. Not today.
Hendrik Van Berg waited at the dock's edge, his trident planted in the ground, the child's ribbon on his wrist fluttering in the toxic breeze. His hollow eyes met Vergo's.
"You know why I'm here," Vergo said, voice flat.
Hendrik nodded once. "This way."
They moved through the streets, past hollow-eyed farmers shuffling in their black clogs, past Overseers cracking whips against slumped backs. The canals bubbled with fluorescent sludge, their surfaces reflecting the sickly glow of Doflamingo's grinning banners.
Then—
A figure stepped from the shadows.
Kuro adjusted his glasses with his palm, the Vivre card in his open hand twitching toward a nearby alley. Behind him, Ember rocked on her heels, her slingshot rifle Sugarfall bouncing against her hip, while Souta stood motionless, katana already half-drawn.
The air thickened.
Kuro's eyes narrowed behind his lenses. "Vice Admiral Vergo," he said, voice like a razor dragged over silk. "What an... unexpected surprise."
Vergo didn't react beyond a slight tightening of his grip on his bamboo staff. His gaze dropped to the Vivre card. Hers.
Ember giggled, fingers twitching. "Ooooh! Boom-boom time?"
"Stay put," Kuro snapped.
She pouted, kicking a pebble into the canal, where it dissolved with a hiss.
Vergo took a step forward. "Step aside."
Kuro didn't budge. "What business does the Navy have in a place like this?"
"Not yours." Vergo's voice was ice. "And it would be best if you didn't know."
A beat. The tension coiled tighter, the scent of pollution and gunpowder threading through the rot.
Then Kuro smiled—slow, calculating. "We may have mutual interests. We could... aid each other."
Vergo's lip curled. "I don't need—"
BANG!
Ember's shot took Vergo square in the chest, the explosion sending a shockwave through the street. Dust and neon sludge sprayed upward in a geyser—
—only for Vergo to stride through the smoke, his Marine coat singed but his skin unmarred. Haki blackened his arms as he cracked his neck.
"Idiot girl," Kuro hissed.
Ember grinned, reloading. "Oopsie!"
Then chaos erupted.
Souta moved first, blade flashing in a silver arc aimed for Vergo's throat. Vergo's bamboo staff met it mid-air with a clang that sent sparks dancing. Kuro lunged, Cat Claws glinting, but Vergo pivoted, driving a Haki-hardened knee into his ribs. Bones cracked.
Ember whooped, firing shot after shot, each explosion painting the street in psychedelic fire. One pellet grazed Vergo's cheek—just enough to draw blood.
He wiped it away, stared at the crimson on his fingers, then moved.
One strike sent Souta crashing through a stall of rotting tulips. Another had Kuro gasping, his glasses shattered, as Vergo's bamboo pinned him to the wall by his throat.
Ember hesitated for the first time, her grin faltering. "Uh. Mr. Whispers says run—"
Vergo was already there. His hand closed around her wrist, the Bang-Bang Fruit's power fizzling uselessly against his Armament Haki. With a single twist, he disarmed her, Sugarfall clattering to the ground.
"Pathetic," he muttered.
Then he ripped the Vivre card from Kuro's belt, the paper scorching slightly in his grip.
Kuro choked out a laugh. "She'll... carve you open..."
Vergo leaned closer. "Let her try."
With that, he dropped Kuro, turned on his heel, and walked away, the Vivre card pulsing in his palm like a second heartbeat.
Behind him, Ember whimpered, cradling her wrist. Souta groaned in the wreckage. Kuro clutched his throat, his shattered glasses reflecting the flames.
The street was silent save for the hiss of neon rain.
*****
The air inside the subterranean safehouse was thick with the scent of damp wood and the acrid tang of Sanguine Lily nectar seeping through the cracks in the grout. The glow of a single oil lamp cast long shadows over the map of Nieuw Bloemendaal sprawled across the table, its canals and fields marked with ink and ash. The Heart Pirates—Law, Marya, Bepo, Clione, Hakugan, Uni—crowded around, their faces grim under the flickering light.
Bram Van Leeuwen, his arms a tapestry of canal routes inked into his skin, traced a path with a calloused finger. "The Blood Dike's weakest point is here," he murmured, voice rough as salt-worn rope. "Flood it, and the fields drown. But the Overseers patrol it like clockwork."
Dr. Elsa Visser adjusted her stained lab coat, her fingers trembling slightly as she pushed a vial of antidote across the table. "The lilies' roots are semi-sentient. They'll fight back if they sense the saltwater coming." Her eyes, hollow with exhaustion, flicked to Law. "You'll need to cut their neural clusters before they can alert the Gifters."
Marya leaned back in her chair, the obsidian blade of Eternal Eclipse resting against the table like a sleeping predator. Her golden-ringed eyes—so like her father's—skimmed the faces around her, lingering on Willem Van der Zee. The rebel leader's sunken gaze was fixed on the map, his guilt as heavy as the black clogs he still wore.
"You bred them," Marya said, not unkindly, but with the detached curiosity of a scholar examining a specimen. "Do they fear anything?"
Willem's throat worked. "Only fire," he admitted, the words dragged from him like roots from cracked earth. "But the nectar is volatile. Burn the fields, and the whole island goes up in smoke."
Bepo's ears twitched. "So… no fire. Got it." He scratched his head, sending a small shower of pink pollen drifting to the floor. Lotte, the teen mechanic, stifled a giggle, her fingers busy twisting a scrap of metal into a makeshift gear.
Law's jaw flexed, the only sign of the storm beneath his calm. Marya noted his fingers twitching toward Kikoku—once, twice—before stilling.
"Then we need a plan that floods the fields and saves my crew," Law said, his voice was cold, calculated.
Silence settled over the room, heavy as the neon runoff glowing outside the windows.
Then the door creaked open.
Every head snapped toward the sound. The hinges groaned like a dying man's breath, and there, framed in the doorway, stood Vergo.
His Marine coat was pristine, his bamboo Jitte at the ready, its tip scraping the floor with a sound like bones rattling in a grave. His face was a mask of bureaucratic indifference, but his eyes—flat and black as oil-slick water—locked onto Law.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Law cursed, low and venomous, and Marya grinned.
It wasn't a pleasant expression. It was the baring of teeth, the glint of a blade before the strike. Her fingers curled around Eternal Eclipse, the crimson runes along its length pulsing faintly, hungry for the fight.
Vergo stepped inside, his boots clicking against the wood. "Trafalgar," he said, tone conversational, as if they were meeting for tea. "I'd say I'm surprised to find you here, but well." His gaze flicked to the map. "You always did have a flair for lost causes."
Bepo's fur bristled. "Captain—"
Law's hand twitched, Room already shimmering at the edges of his fingertips. But before he could move, Marya spoke, her voice a lazy drawl.
"Vergo, was it?" She tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle she hadn't decided was worth solving. "You're taller than I remember. And uglier."
Vergo's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Mihawk's brat."
The air turned to ice.
Then chaos erupted.
Law's Room exploded outward, blue light swallowing the room. Vergo lunged, Jitte flashing. Marya melted into mist, reforming behind him with Eternal Eclipse already arcing toward his spine. Bram yanked Lotte under the table, while Willem and Dr. Visser scrambled for the back door.
The battle for Nieuw Bloemendaal had begun.