The news of the Rocks Pirates' growing strength hit the seas like a boulder crashing into water, and the ripples had yet to fade.
Yet aboard the Oro Jackson, life seemed to return to its usual rhythm. Sailing, training, and feasting made up their simple three-part harmony.
On this day, the sea was calm, the sun warm, as if even the ocean itself was dozing off.
"Fleet spotted ahead!" Dorlinger's voice rang from the lookout, alarm clear in his tone.
The lazy atmosphere on deck shattered instantly as everyone snapped into battle readiness.
Kael Grylls narrowed his eyes toward the horizon. A massive fleet surged across the waves, each ship shaped differently but radiating the same brutal aura. On every sail, a grinning skull flag fluttered in the wind.
The Rocks Pirates.
The fleet didn't encircle them or open fire. The lead battleship sailed straight on and halted a hundred meters from the Oro Jackson.
At the bow stood an all-too-familiar figure: Golden Lion Shiki. Beside him was a tall, striking woman with long pink hair, impatiently cramming an enormous cake into her mouth. To their side stood a man hefting a massive silver battle-axe, his body encased in heavy armor, and another dressed gaudily with twin blades strapped at his waist.
Shiki the Golden Lion, Charlotte Linlin, Silver Axe, Captain John… each one a name that made the Marines tremble, their bounties legendary across the seas.
"Jihahaha! Roger, long time no see!" Shiki spread his arms wide, swaggering as if he hadn't been the one who ran away in disgrace the last time. "Looks like your little boat hasn't fallen apart yet."
Roger hoisted his sword onto his shoulder, grinning broadly. "Shiki, your head still looks like a pineapple. What's this, last beating wasn't enough? You brought friends to save face?"
"Mamamama…" Charlotte Linlin swallowed the last of her cake and licked her lips, her greedy gaze sweeping across the Oro Jackson. "Enough talk, Shiki!"
But Shiki ignored her, locking eyes with Roger, his voice dripping with arrogant charity. "Roger, Rocks has his eye on you. He admires your strength. He's giving you the chance to join us and become a cornerstone of his rule over the world!"
The deck went silent.
"Pfft " Roger stifled it at first, then burst into roaring laughter, shaking the ship with his voice.
"Kuhahahaha! Me, someone's subordinate? Don't joke with me! I didn't set sail just to follow orders!"
Shiki's grin vanished, replaced by a stormy scowl. "So, you refuse?"
"What do you think?" Roger lowered Ace from his shoulder, pointing the blade straight at him.
"Then you don't get a choice!"
Before the words even finished, Shiki drew his twin blades, Oto and Kogarashi. From the sea beneath his feet, two colossal lion heads of water rose with deafening roars, surging at the Oro Jackson.
"Looking for a fight? I'll play along!"
Roger's laugh thundered again as his figure vanished, reappearing in the air. His blade, Ace, crackled with Conqueror's Haki as it met Shiki's slash head-on.
"Divine Departure!"
Boom!
Black-red lightning exploded in the sky, shockwaves hammering the ocean into a massive crater.
"Men! Let's go!" Scopper Gaban hefted his battle axe, roaring as he leapt onto the enemy ship to clash with the silent Silver Axe.
Rayleigh drew his sword, dashing across the waves to intercept Captain John, their blades flashing so quickly they blurred into afterimages.
And in front of Kael Grylls stood none other than the future Yonko, Charlotte Linlin.
"Mamamama, just a little brat thinks he can block me?" Linlin's left hand flared with soul fire while her right gripped a thundercloud.
Kael studied the towering but not-yet-monstrous woman before him. Though he had braced himself, only one thought kept looping in his head.
This is Charlotte Linlin? The same woman who'll one day grow into the mountain-sized demon they call Big Mom? Damn you, Oda!
"Boy, what are you staring at!" Linlin bellowed, fury blazing. The fire in her hand erupted into a fireball Prometheus hurling straight at him.
"Sorry, I was just comparing public buses to private cars. Heatwave Burst!"
Kael snapped back, thrusting out his palm. An invisible ring of infrared waves condensed into a beam that collided with the fireball midair.
The clash scorched the air, heatwaves rippling and twisting the atmosphere.
"Thundercloud, Heaven's Wrath!"
Linlin slashed down her hand, and Zeus hurled a massive bolt of lightning.
Dodge? As if. Physics bows to no one!
Kael stepped forward, releasing a surge of electromagnetic waves from his palm, smashing into the lightning in a sizzling standoff.
The energies shrieked against each other before fizzling out into nothing.
"Interesting!" Linlin grinned savagely, drawing her sentient longsword Napoleon, its edge wrapped in crackling fire and lightning. She swung in a devastating arc.
Kael met it head-on. At the instant of contact, a shockwave burst outward like a ring of thunderclaps, the recoil forcing both of them back several steps.
The battle hit full tilt in moments.
Roger and Shiki's Conqueror's clash split the skies apart. Rayleigh and John's duel stirred the sea into chaos. Gaban and Silver Axe's raw power duel made the decks groan and creak.
And Kael's fight with Charlotte Linlin turned into a head-on war of abilities. Prometheus spewed flames hot enough to melt steel, Zeus hurled bolts that could shred the heavens, yet Kael's Wave-Wave Fruit always found ways to counter.
Still, every strike he landed felt like slamming into a mountain clad in Haki.
Linlin's durability was absurd. Her body seemed designed to endure damage, her Armament Haki so dense it was nearly tangible.
Damn, this defense stat broken beyond belief!
Kael's Sonic Fist: Shockwave Crash hammered into her, but only forced her half a step back. The concussive ring didn't even ruffle her pink hair.
"Mamamama… flashy powers, brat, but they're just tickles!" Linlin sneered, Napoleon slashing in arcs wreathed in fire and thunder, each blow threatening to tear the sky down.
Kael blurred with Mirage Step, afterimages scattering across the deck as he dodged, refusing to meet her brute force head-on.
Did she eat Sea-Prism Stone growing up? Going blow-for-blow was suicide.
His gaze flicked across the battlefield. Roger and Shiki clashed overhead in black-red lightning. Rayleigh and John's blades blurred into streaks of light. Gaban hammered Silver Axe in a contest of raw might, though his armored foe looked like a walking iron can.
Kael's lips curled. A plan sparked.
As he barely dodged Linlin's earth-shaking "Ikoku Sovereignty," he shouted across the chaos, "Gaban!"
Locked in a grapple with Silver Axe, Gaban glanced over, saw Kael being chased ragged, and burst out laughing. "Ha! Kael, can't even handle a woman?"
His booming laughter dripped with unrestrained mockery.
"Yeah yeah, you're right," Kael shot back dryly, "why don't you try? Don't throw your back out!"
"You asked for it! I'll take her!" Gaban roared, shoving Silver Axe back with a mighty heave and hurtling at Linlin like a cannonball.
"Mamamama… another one rushing to die!" Linlin's eyes lit up with glee as she turned from Kael to face the incoming axe.
Boom!
The clash between Gaban's massive axe and Napoleon's thunder-fire edge shook the battlefield even harder than before.
Muscle against monster, steel against storm, their strength locked in a dead heat.
Not bad at all, Gaban-san.
Kael slipped free, flickered with Sonic Step, and appeared before Silver Axe. Eyeing the armored figure top to toe, his grin turned wicked.
"A walking tin can, huh? My favorite kind of can… is the kind I get to open."
Silver Axe raised his weapon without a word, his armored footsteps pounding dents into the deck as he charged. He didn't even bother to take Kael seriously.
Kael stood still, even closing his eyes as if listening to the song of the wind. Waves of invisible frequency rippled from him.
At the instant Silver Axe's blade came crashing down, Kael raised his hand calmly, palm forward. His lips moved.
"Resonance… Collapse."
No explosion. No flash of light.
Just a horrible cracking sound.
Silver Axe froze mid-strike, looking down in disbelief. His once-impenetrable armor now spiderwebbed with cracks. The fractures raced across his chest, arms, and legs, groaning under invisible strain.
"This… impossible…" came the hoarse voice from under the helm.
"You hear that?" Kael's golden eyes gleamed as he snapped his fingers. "The melody of destruction."
Crack!
The mighty armor shattered like brittle eggshell, raining fragments across the deck with a chorus of clattering echoes.
The smoke cleared to reveal a towering, stern-faced man beneath, his expression twisted with disbelief. His strongest defense had fallen to pieces in an instant.
Kael shook out his hand as if he'd done something trivial, then crooked a finger at his stunned opponent.
"Come on, Mr. Tin Can. Let's play fair now."
…
The clash ended as abruptly as it began.
"Jihahaha! Enough!" Shiki forced Roger back and rose into the air, laughing down at the Oro Jackson. "Interesting! Roger, you've got some good people aboard!"
Golden mane or not, it'd sound more convincing if you wiped the blood off your forehead first.
Charlotte Linlin pulled back Prometheus and Zeus, licking her lips hungrily.
Rayleigh and Gaban disengaged, returning to the Oro Jackson.
"This was just a greeting," Shiki called from above, condescension dripping from his tone. "Rocks waits at Hachinosu for the world's strongest. Roger, think it over. Next time, it won't be so easy!"
With that, the Rocks fleet turned and sailed away, as though they had come only to deliver a message and brawl a little for good measure.
"Kuhahahaha!" Roger sheathed his blade and roared with laughter. "What an entertaining bunch of fools!"