The air in the forge was a suffocating blend of sulfur and scorched iron, the walls lined with rusted anvils and Lunarian bellows that wheezed like asthmatic dragons. Tavi sneezed, sending a plume of ancient soot billowing over a dormant Garuda automaton, its beak frozen in a perpetual screech. Kip poked its talon, recoiling when it dinged like a cracked bell. "It's alive!"
"It's dead," Juro corrected, adjusting his goggles. "Unless you've got a death wish, stop—"
The automaton's eyes flared crimson, gears shrieking as it lunged. Mihawk's blade flashed, cleaving its head off mid-leap. The head rolled to Marya's feet, chirping a distorted Lunarian lullaby.
"Charming," Mihawk said, flicking oil from Yoru. "They even sing as they die."
Marya ignored the carnage, her gaze locked on the forge's heart—a massive crucible brimming with Star-Metal shards that glowed like trapped supernovas. The heat warped the air, yet her Void veins drank it in, humming in resonance. She pried a shard free, its surface swirling with constellations only she could decipher.
"Need a hand?" Juro asked, sidling up with tongs too large for his trembling grip. "I've, uh… expertise in superheated alloys!"
"I'm good, thanks," Marya said, tossing the shard into her pack.
Tavi giggled, dodging another automaton's claw. "He's flirting again! Like a penguin proposing to a volcano!"
The forge erupted into chaos as six more Garudas awoke, their wings sparking with residual electro. Mihawk carved through them with bored slash, their dismantled limbs forming a morbid sculpture titled "Regret in Six Acts." Juro, meanwhile, tripped over a scorched journal, its pages fluttering open to reveal Lunarian runes.
"Star-Metal… mined from Yggdrasil's roots… channels the Primordial Current," he read aloud, squinting. "It's the source of Devil Fruits?!"
Mihawk bisected an automaton mid-pirouette. "Explains why the WG hoards it like misers. Power tastes sweeter stolen."
Kip, now wearing a Garuda talon as a hat, rummaged through a toolbox. "What's a Yggdrasilly?"
"A tree," Juro said.
"A metaphor," Mihawk countered.
"A problem," Marya stated, snatching the journal. Her eyes narrowed at a diagram of roots strangling a sea king. "The World Government didn't create Devil Fruits. They leashed them."
A surviving automaton lurched toward her, its gears grinding out a sea shanty. Mihawk impaled it, pinning it to a wall where it continued humming Binks' Brew off-key.
"Eternal Eclipse needs reforging," Marya said, eyeing the crucible. "This metal will do."
Juro brightened. "I can help! My mentor taught me the Twelvefold Tempering Technique! It's, uh… very romantic?"
"Romantic as a toothache," Mihawk said, salvaging a Star-Metal nail to clean his blade.
As Marya gathered shards, Tavi and Kip "tested" the forge's stability by jumping on a bellows. It erupted, shooting a fireball that singed Juro's eyebrows.
"Why are they here?!" Juro yelped, batting embers from his hair.
"Entertainment," Mihawk said, as the twins high-fived over their latest arson.
Suddenly, the ground quaked. A hidden vault yawned open, revealing stacks of Star-Metal ingots stamped with Celestial Dragon crests. Marya's lip curled. "The WG's plunder."
"Our plunder now," Mihawk corrected, pocketing an ingot. "Souvenirs make excellent paperweights."
Juro, desperate to impress, lit the forge with a trembling hand. The flames roared to life, casting shadows that danced like Joy Boy's grin. "Ready when you are!"
Marya handed him a shard. "Melt this. Nothing else."
"Right! Melting! No… romantic subtext!" Juro stammered, nearly dropping the shard into the fire.
Mihawk smirked. "How reassuring."
As the Star-Metal liquefied, its glow painting the forge in aurora hues, the Gates of Lethe shuddered far below—their rusted hinges whispering of a sword yet unbroken, and a blacksmith whose heart hammered louder than any automaton's demise.
*****
The Gilded Talon cut through the waves like a blade through silk, its prow glinting with Marine insignias polished to a merciless sheen. Vice Admiral Venus Harlow stood at the helm, her prosthetic leg—a skeletal framework of seastone and steel—anchoring her to the deck as the ship lurched. The air reeked of salt and static, the Pacifistas lining the rails humming with latent energy, their laser eyes casting jagged red streaks across the darkening horizon. Behind her, Kai Sullivan adjusted his glasses, the lenses fogging with the spray, while Nuri Evander drummed his steel bat against his palm, the engraved MVP clinking like a deranged metronome.
The island loomed ahead—a jagged silhouette wreathed in storm clouds, its peaks clawing at the sky like broken teeth. Venus's remaining leg twitched, the ghost of her severed limb itching beneath the prosthetic. Two years, she thought, her gloved hand brushing the scar on her cheek. Two years since that cursed blade took my leg. Two years of nightmares.
The transponder snail erupted into a shrill scream.
Venus snatched it, her Leviathan's Claws sparking as they grazed the shell. "Harlow," she barked.
"Status." Vergo's voice was gravel wrapped in smoke, the faint tap-tap of his bamboo stick audible even through the line.
"Pacifistas primed. Coordinates locked." Her prosthetic whirred as she shifted her weight, the gears grinding like bones. "Standing by."
"Hold position. Awaiting one more vessel." A pause. The stick tapped faster. "Send reconnaissance."
Venus's jaw tightened. He's stalling. Letting the Dracules slip again. But she nodded, monotone. "Understood."
The snail went limp. She crushed it in her fist, its shell fragmenting into opalescent dust. "Sullivan. Evander. Recon. Now."
Nuri whooped, slamming his bat against the deck. "Time to fly!"
Kai grimaced, tightening the straps of his rifle case. "It's Maestro," he muttered, though his protest died as Nuri's form began to shift. Bones cracked, wings unfurling—translucent membranes veined with crimson—as the Arambourgiania's beak-like snout erupted from his face. The full, transformed form loomed, membrane glinting like shrapnel.
"Optimal dive angle's 45 degrees!" Nuri's voice warped, in a screech. "Arambourgiania's wingspan generates lift equivalent to—"
"Just go," Kai snapped, slinging his rifle, Silent Requiem, across his back. He vaulted onto Nuri's spine, boots finding grooves between the vertebrae.
With a thunderous flap, they surged skyward, Kai's coat whipping like a tattered flag. Venus watched them vanish into the bruise-purple clouds, her throat tight. Don't fail me again.
The Pacifistas stirred, their joints hissing steam.
Marcellus's ship emerged from the mist like a phantom—a glass galleon, its sails crystalline shards refracting the storm's fury. At the prow, Marcellus leaned languidly, his hair a cascade of frozen splinters, monocle glinting. "Darling Venus~," he crooned, voice carrying across the waves. "Still limping after that Dracule brat?"
Venus's prosthetic leg locked. That voice. She'd heard it in her nightmares, echoing through Mariejois's marble halls as her men burned.
"CP0 has no jurisdiction here," she growled, handguard blades unsheathing with a metallic snick.
Marcellus giggled, adjusting his monocle. "Oh, but jurisdiction is such a flexible concept." Behind him, Guillotine Gereon materialized, chains slithering like serpents. "We're here to… audit your progress."
The sea boiled.
Above the island, Kai stood atop Nuri's spine, the wind screaming in his ears as Nuri's Arambourgiania wings sliced through Angkor'thal's sulfur-tinged skies. Below, the island unfolded—a tapestry of ruin and rebellion. The Temple of Dawn's Echo speared the clouds, its sandstone spires strangled by serpentine roots that pulsed with a bioluminescent blue, as if the jungle itself had veins. Kai adjusted his glasses, the lenses flickering with data from his scope. "Thermal signatures due east," he shouted over the gale. "Encampment near the riverbend. Could be pirates."
Nuri banked sharply, his wings catching an updraft from the River of Forgotten Time, its waters churning backward under the waxing moon. The inverted current revealed glints of submerged ruins—crumbling arches, a half-sunken Lunarian statue gripping a broken trident. "Didja know this river's sap can turn you to stone?" Nuri's voice warped between human and avian screech. "Read it in Vegapunk's notes! Bet the World Gov's pissed they can't tax that—"
"Focus," Kai snapped, though his grip tightened on Silent Requiem. The rifle's Vegapunk enhanced Skypian dials hummed, attuned to the island's eerie acoustics. Below, the Haven of the Eclipse sprawled—a mosaic of stilted huts and repurposed ship hulls, their lanterns shaped like crescent moons casting wavering reflections on the black seastone-infused waters. Fish-Men hammered at glowing forges in the docks, their anvils ringing a discordant melody with the distant thrum of the Tidecaller's Spire.
Then Kai saw it.
A ship—no, a specter—gliding through the mangrove maze. Its hull was polished obsidian, the prow carved into the sneering visage of a velociraptor. Casimir's personal emblem. "Nuri! Nine o'clock—!"
Nuri craned his elongated neck, one golden eye narrowing. "Vanguard colors. That's… new."
Casimir's ship moved with predatory grace, its sails emblazoned with the World Government's crest crossed out by a jagged claw mark—a declaration of his rogue status. Marines in ash-gray uniforms swarmed the deck, loading crates stamped with PROPERTY OF VANGUARD. One crate slipped, cracking open to reveal glinting seastone shackles. Kai's breath hitched. "They're not here for Marya. They're stocking up."
Nuri's wings faltered, a tremor of unease rippling through his feathers. "Casimir's hunting bigger game. Or… buyers."
Kai's mind raced. Venus Harlow's voice echoed in his memory: "That raptor's got a taste for crucifying deserters. You see him, you run." But the Navy's orders were clear: observe, report. No heroics.
"We need to signal the Gilded Talon," Kai muttered, fumbling for the transponder snail secured in his coat. The device felt like ice in his palm.
Nuri snorted, a puff of steam billowing from his beak. "Signal? How 'bout I dive-bomb that pretty deck first? Grand Slam style—"
"No." Kai's finger hovered over the snail's dial. "Venus said recon only. Casimir's got Pacifista tech now. See those gauntlets?" He zoomed his scope on the Vanguard admiral striding onto the dock—Casimir's Velociraptor talons glinted with seastone filigree, his remaining eye scanning the crowds like a hawk scenting blood. A trio of Syndicate assassins trailed him, their faces hidden behind vice-themed masks.
The snail chirped to life.
"Harlow," Kai hissed. "Casimir's here. At the Haven. He's… collaborating with someone. Uknown logos on the crates."
Static crackled. Then Venus's voice, clipped and cold: "Withdraw. Now."
Nuri wheeled skyward, but a shadow fell across them—a Stone Naga, its winged silhouette blotting out the moon. The ancient guardian's eyes glowed crimson, jaws parting in a silent roar. Temporal mists coiled around its petrified scales, and for a heartbeat, Kai saw visions: Lunarian warriors battling World Government ships, their fiery wings scorching the sea.
"Nuri—climb!"
The Arambourgiania surged upward, Kai's stomach lurching as the Naga's geyser breath erupted below, drenching the mangrove channels. Casimir's head snapped upward, his eye locking onto theirs. A slow, venomous smile spread across his face.
"He sees us," Kai whispered.
"So let him see this—" Nuri tucked his wings, plummeting toward the temple spires. Wind screamed past them, Kai's fingers numb as he clung to the rifle. The world blurred—bioluminescent vines, the Eclipse Gate's archway throbbing with latent energy, refugees scattering in the markets below.
Then, a sound—a deep, resonant hum from the Tidecaller's Spire. The lighthouse beam flickered gold, its light refracting through the temporal mists. For a moment, the island shifted. The ruins rebuilt themselves in spectral echoes, Lunarian architects chanting as they laid the Poneglyph's final stone.
"Kai!" Nuri's voice was raw. "The spire—it's a trigger!"
Casimir's ship fired—a seastone net rocketed toward them, its edges crackling with Haki-suppressing volts. Nuri barrel-rolled, the net grazing his tail. "Okay, new plan—we leave!"
Kai didn't argue. As they arrowed toward the horizon, he glanced back. Casimir stood at the prow, raising a vial of Void Moss to his lips. The Syndicate masks behind him tilted upward, their hollow eyes following Kai's flight path.
The message was clear: The hunt is just beginning.
Nuri's wings beat harder, carrying them into the storm's heart. Kai's hands trembled—not from fear, but fury. The Navy's hunger for revenge was a living thing, gnawing at his ribs. But deeper still, the island's whispers lingered—of Nika's unfulfilled promise, of a dawn still chained.
*****
The Eclipse Gate loomed ahead, its archway crusted with luminescent barnacles that pulsed in time to Tavi's off-key humming. The air reeked of ozone and burnt sugar, a side effect of the gate's dormant energy core. Juro, clutching a bouquet of glowshroom stalks he'd mistaken for "romantic lilies," tripped over a tile engraved with a Lunarian sun deity mid-sneeze.
"Watch your step," Mihawk drawled, nudging the tile with his boot. It emitted a comical achoo!, triggering hidden gears. The gate shuddered, barnacles shedding like glittering rain as celestial runes flared to life.
"I meant to do that," Juro lied, offering Marya the glowing mushrooms. "For, uh… lighting the way?"
Marya disregarded him, her Void veins flickering as she traced the arch's carvings—ancient Minks and Lunarians dancing under a star-swirled sky. "The alignment's off. It needs a catalyst."
"Catalyst?" Kip gasped, leaping onto Mihawk's shoulders. "Like explosives?!"
Before anyone could answer, the twins' combined weight sank a pressure plate. The gate roared to life, its center splitting into a starry void that hummed the chorus of Binks' Brew backward. A frigid wind sucked at Marya's coat, her mist surging uncontrollably toward the portal.
"Tempting," Mihawk said, anchoring her with Yoru's scabbard. "But portals lack decent wine lists."
Within the vortex, Tartarus' Maw yawned—a jagged maw of obsidian teeth dripping starlight. A shadow flickered in its depths: a figure cloaked in onyx, one eye glinting like a poisoned gem. Imu.
"Creepy," Tavi whispered. "Think they'd like my seaweed necklace?"
Marya wrenched free, mist recoiling as the portal snapped shut. The gate's runes rearranged into the Riddle of the Unseen Dawn, its verses glowing like accusatory neon.
*****
The shadow fell first—a jagged silhouette rippling across the bioluminescent waters of Haven's bay. Nuri's Arambourgiania wings sliced through the sulfur-tinted clouds, their membranous veins casting a lattice of crimson over the stilted huts below. A Fish-Man child paused mid-skip on a rope bridge, her bucket of seastone shards slipping from her hands. The shards clattered against the dock, their chimes sharp as gunshots.
"Alarm!" roared Branson "Brass-Knuckle" Hale from the Driftwood Tavern's balcony, his parrot squawking "Imu sees! Imu sees!" in sync with his fury. He hurled a smoke pot into the harbor, its petrified-wood fumes spiraling into a temporal mist. The Tidecaller's Spire shuddered, its Lunarian lens refracting gold light through the fog—a futile attempt to cloak the town.
Captain Veyla "Storm-Eye" Rask burst from the town hall, her patched Marine coat flapping like a battle standard. The brass eyepiece grafted to her skull whirred, telescoping to track the intruders. Through the storm of data—wind shear, tide patterns, the faint hum of Navy transponder signals—she locked onto Kai's rifle case glinting in the gloom. Navy. Her gut twisted, the old scar beneath her eyepiece throbbing.
"Mira!" Veyla barked, storming into the Three-Eyed Tribe's enclave, a cramped loft veiled in gauzy curtains reeking of desert sand and incense. The Oracle sat cross-legged on a mosaic of tide charts, her bandaged third eye leaking cerulean light onto a half-finished haiku about Marya's "gilded resolve."
"The wheel turns," Mira murmured, not looking up. Her veils fluttered as tidal winds seeped through cracks in the walls. "The moon's third tear falls at dusk. The Keybearer's shadow—"
"Enough riddles!" Veyla slammed her fist on the table, upsetting a jar of sand. Granules scattered like hourglass ghosts. "Did you see this? Did your tides warn you?"
Mira's fingers trembled as she traced a spiral on the chart. "Destiny is a wheel, Captain. To speak its path is to… to grease its axle." She giggled, a brittle sound. "The children's laughter echoes in the Maw. Tavi's lockpick, Kip's scowl—they'll crack the sky, but the chains…"
Veyla's eye narrowed. The woman was insufferable. "Gather your tribe. Hide in the Ghost Fleet's hulls. Now."
Outside, chaos crescendoed. Fishermen hauled nets bristling with stolen Marine tech into trapdoors, while Silas "Silent Tide" Voss slipped vials of Eclipse Rum—paralysis blend—into the wells of unsuspecting Navy scouts. Above, the Arambourgiania banked sharply, Kai's scope glinting like a sniper's star.
"Juro!" Veyla bellowed toward the docks, but the forge was dark, volcanic vents cold. Damn that smitten fool. She cursed the Dracules again—Those matching golden eyes of ice and fire, dragging hurricanes in their wake.
Deep in the Naga's Maw Forge, the air tasted of molten constellations. Marya pried a Star-Metal shard from the crucible, its surface swirling with astral maps only her Void-veined sight could parse. Juro hovered nearby, tongs trembling as he offered unsolicited advice. "Twelvefold Tempering requires—ah!—patience! And, uh, a steady hand!"
"Steadier than yours," Mihawk remarked dryly, decapitating a reactivated Garuda automaton. Its head rolled toward Kip, who promptly wore it as a helmet and began growling at Tavi.
"I'm Iron Tide Kurosawa," Juro muttered, defensive. "My hands are steady when… when inspired!"
Tavi, halfway up a petrified root, giggled. "He means when Marya's looking!"
A tremor shook the chamber—subtle, but Mihawk's blade stilled. Yoru's edge hummed, sensing Haki on the wind. Marya's mist coiled instinctively around her wrists. "The town's under attack," she said, cold certainty in her voice.
"Dibs on the cannons!" Kip shouted, brandishing his wooden "Seastinger" sword.
Before Juro could protest, the Tidecaller's Spire's golden beam pierced the ruins through a crack in the ceiling. The light hit the Eclipse Gate's archway, its barnacle-crusted runes flaring awake. A hologram flickered—Captain Veyla's eyepiece feed, intercepted by the Spire's Lunarian tech—showing Kai's scope zeroing in on the Haven.
"Navy," Mihawk said, almost bored. "How pedestrian."
Marya's jaw tightened. The vision of Imu in the gate's void flashed in her mind—poisoned gem eye, chains like liquid shadow. "We're done here," she said, snatching the Star-Metal.
Juro stepped forward, scales glinting. "Let me help! I'll forge anything—swords, shields, a, uh, romantic distraction—"
Marya's side-eye glare cut through him, though her mist softened, brushing his arm like a sigh.
Aboveground, Haven's bells clanged in dissonant harmony with the Garudas' dying shrieks. The twins scampered ahead, their "treasure map" napkins fluttering behind them like surrender flags.
Back at the docks, Veyla gripped the Tidecaller's Spire's control lever, her knuckles white. The temporal mists thickened, but Kai's shadow loomed larger—a vulture circling carrion. Not again. Not another island erased.
"Mira!" Veyla shouted into the mist. "If destiny's a wheel, jam the damned spokes!"
Somewhere in the fog, Mira smiled, her third eye bleeding visions of a laughing girl with golden irises. The Keybearer, she thought, sprinkling desert sand into the reversing river. The wheel turns, Captain. But the axle… the axle is ours.