Chapter 5: The Sun Might
The time was 11:50 AM.
The sun was a crown of white fire, approaching its zenith.
My power was a roaring ocean in my veins. The Escanor persona was in full control, my 15-year-old body now a mere vessel for its divine, burning pride.
My base stats (STR: 20, STM: 15, AGI: 15, BODY: 18) were a solid foundation, but the Sunshine ability was a multiplier of impossible proportions..
I was no longer the shivering boy who had hidden from the dark. I was the one who brought the day.
The Marine G-17 Outpost on Whisperwind Isle was a two-story, whitewashed building, the symbol of "Justice" proudly painted on its walls. It was pathetic. An insult.
This was the flag of the men who served the monsters that had forced me to kill, that had hunted children for sport, and that had erased my home.
[Quest: Get Wanted]
Task: Perform an act so undeniable that the Marines must issue a bounty for Monkey D. Luthor.
"Indeed," I said aloud, my voice a resonant baritone that did not belong to a 15-year-old.
I did not sneak. I did not plan.
Such things are for those who fear the outcome. I simply walked.
I strolled along the avenue in my new civil attire, a plain black shirt and trousers. They had not made any effort to conceal the impression of power which emanated in me, and made visible spurts of heat. The air around me shimmered.
"Halt!" cryed the two Marine guards at the front door and they are ordinary soldiers with Strength: 10, raised their rifles. "This is a restricted area, citizen! Turn back at once!"
I paused, gazed on them pitifully. I cannot imagine I used to wear a similar pathetic uniform. Oh, I am sorry, I said.
"What? He's insulting us! Fire a warning shot—"
The Marine did not complete his sentence. The bullets they hurled went melted in the air, ten feet down my body, and turned into steam. Their eyes were stretched in horror.
"What... what is he?!"
"I am the one who decides," I said, raising a single finger. A tiny, perfect star, no bigger than a marble, ignited on my fingertip.
"And I have decided that this door is an offense."
I flicked the miniature Cruel Sun. It didn't explode. It simply erased. The 10-foot-thick steel gate and a 20-foot-wide section of the fortress wall vanished, turned into molten slag that dripped onto the ground.
The alarm bells inside the base began to shriek. "INTRUDER! INTRUDER AT THE FRONT GATE!"
I stepped through the still-smoking hole I had created, into the central courtyard. Marines swarmed from the barracks, dozens of them, all leveling their guns at me.
"FIRE! BRING HIM DOWN!"
A hailstorm of lead shot erupted. I simply stood there, my hands clasped behind my back, my expression one of utter boredom.
Not a single bullet reached me. They all turned to liquid, spattering uselessly on the cobblestones.
"It is... hot..." one of the men gasped, his uniform beginning to smoke. "I can't... breathe..."
"Who... Who in the blazes are you, boy?!" a new voice boomed.
A man in a Captain's coat stood on the steps of the main building. He was tall, with a scar over one eye and a look of grim determination. His hand was on the hilt of his katana.
[Target Identified:
Marine Captain Helio.
Strength: 40.
Stamina: 38.
Combat Power:
Marine Captain Level.]
"A Captain," I mused, my voice projecting across the square.
"Tell me, Captain. Do you enjoy your work? Do you enjoy serving the 'gods' who hunt children for sport?"
Captain Helio's face paled.
"That is... classified information... How...?" He drew his sword, a faint black sheen coating the blade. A basic form of Armament Haki.
"It doesn't matter! You have attacked a World Government facility! You are a pirate, and you will be executed! Moon-Fang Slash!"
He lunged, his Strength: 40 impressive for a place like this. His blade, enhanced with Haki, was meant to cut through Devil Fruit users and steel alike.
It, too, melted.
The Haki sizzled and evaporated against my passive heat-shroud. The steel of the katana drooped like a wet noodle, then liquefied, dripping onto his hand and the ground.
Helio screamed, dropping the molten hilt and clutching his blistering hand. He stared at me, his professional courage completely shattered, replaced by a raw, primal terror.
"You... Your body... it's like a star... It's impossible..."
"Impossible for you," I corrected him, taking a step up. The cobblestones beneath my feet glowed red.
"I am here for one reason. The world thinks I am dead. A convenient lie to cover the shame of your masters. I am here to correct the record."
I walked past him, and he didn't dare move. I entered the main building.
The time was 11:58 AM. My power was swelling, a tidal wave of divine might. The very walls of the building began to crack and scorch from my proximity.
"Where is your Den Den Mushi?" I asked the terrified operators.
One of them pointed, shaking, to the main communications room.
"Good."
I entered the room. It was 11:59 AM.
I was a living sun. My body had grown, my muscles swelling, my frame now standing over seven feet tall, a true reflection of the power I wielded.
"Now," I said, "we wait."
"W-wait for what?" the operator stammered.
"The peak."
The clock on the wall struck 12:00.
Noon.
For one sacred, terrible minute, my power became absolute.
My body, my soul, my very being became the physical incarnation of the Sun. My Combat Power was... [ERROR. UNMEASURABLE].
I looked at the trembling operator. "Dial Marineford. General line."
"S-sir?"
"Dial. Now."
He fumbled with the dial, his fingers slipping. He finally made the connection.
"Marineford HQ, Operator 3-B, what is the situation, G-17?"
I took the receiver. The man who spoke was pirate Monkey D. Luthor
"This is not a report," I boomed, my voice vibrating with the power of a thousand suns, causing the receiver to crack. "This is a declaration."
_______________________
Meanwhile, at Marineford...
Sengoku, now a full Admiral, was reviewing damage reports from God Valley. Fleet Admiral Kong was in a meeting with the Gorosei.
Vice Admiral Garp was... gone. He had taken his ship and simply vanished, leaving only a note that said, "Finding my son."
"Sengoku-sama!" an operator called out. "We have an emergency line from G-17 at Whisperwind Isle! But... you need to hear this."
Sengoku took the receiver. "...a declaration? Identify yourself, pirate!"
He heard a voice. A voice so full of arrogance and raw, burning power that it made the hairs on his arm stand up.
"I am the lion who stands atop the pride of all clans. I am the one you call a ghost. Listen....listen well, dogs of the World Government."
Back at Whisperwind Isle...
"My name is Monkey D. Luthor. Son of Garp. The man your masters lied about. The man Figarland Garling claimed to have executed."
At Marineford, Sengoku dropped his receiver. It clattered to the floor.
"Garling... executed... Luthor? Garp's boy?" he whispered, a terrible, cold dread filling him. He had seen the MIA report. He had not seen Garling's private one.
"Tell your masters," my voice continued, "tell your Admirals, and tell the Five Elders who hide behind their lies. I am alive. And I am coming."
To punctuate the point, I raised my free hand, my index finger pointed at the sky above the base.
"Let this be my greeting to the world. CRUEL SUN."
A star was born over Whisperwind Isle. It was a sun of pure, blinding rage. I didn't throw it. I held it, a statement of absolute domination.
The heat was so intense that the top floor of the Marine base vaporized. The ground of the courtyard turned to glass.
The sea around the island's harbor began to boil.
"This... this is the power of a single man..."
Captain Helio whispered, his face streaked with tears of terror.
"My 'treason' at God Valley was a service," I declared into the phone.
"My sin was not killing a god. My sin was stopping at one. From this day forward, I am an enemy of the world. And I will not stop until the Hoof of this celestial Dragon is ash beneath my boot. Remember my name."
I crushed the receiver in my hand.
The clock struck 12:01.
The absolute power faded, receding back to its "mere" monstrous, 10 AM-level. I shrank back to my normal, if-still-impressive, form. I was breathing heavily. That one minute... it was intoxicating.
[Quest Progress: 80%... 90%... 95%...]
I needed a poster. The report was not enough.
I turned, the building collapsing around me. I walked back into the courtyard, which was now a molten crater.
The Marines were all alive, huddled at the edges, their uniforms burned from their bodies, their weapons non-existent.
"He... he let us live..."
"He's a demon..."
My eyes scanned the wreckage. Then I heard it. A cough, from beneath a pile of rubble that had been the brig.
I blasted the rubble aside.
A young woman, no older than 18, was chained to the wall of a subterranean cell, which had barely survived.
She had vibrant, sea-green hair and eyes that held no fear. Only a sharp, calculating curiosity. She was looking at me, not as a monster, but as a phenomenon.
"Well," she said, her voice a little hoarse from the smoke. "You certainly made an entrance. I was wondering when someone would tear this place down."
I regarded her. She wasn't a Marine. A prisoner.
"Who are you?" My voice was still the deep, prideful baritone of my day form.
"Elara. The best navigator you'll never find," she smirked, gesturing to her sea-prism stone chains.
"Or, at least, the one these idiots thought they could control. They didn't like that I could feel the weather before their instruments could."
A navigator who could feel the Grand Line. Valuable.
"You are no longer a prisoner. You are my subordinate," I stated. It was not a request.
I reached out and placed my hand on her chains.
The sea-prism stone resisted, but the Sunshine heat did not. The chains glowed red, then white, then melted away. Elara yelped, pulling her wrists back from the heat.
She stood up, rubbing her raw skin, and looked me up and down. "Subordinate, eh? Just like that? You don't even know my name."
"I know all I need to," I said. "My ship is at the south dock. You will provision it, and you will be my navigater. I am Monkey D. Luthor."
Elara's eyes widened, her smirk faltering for the first time.
"Luthor... are you Vice Admiral Garp's son? The one who... the news said you were dead."
"The news," I said, turning to walk out of the smoldering crater that was once a Marine base, "was wrong."
Elara stared at my back, at the boy wreathed in heat and arrogance, who had just defied the world. A slow, dangerous smile returned to her face.
"This," she whispered to herself, "is going to be so much more interesting than rotting in a cell."
She ran to catch up.
(To be continued)
______________________________________