The Consortium's central atrium buzzed with its usual symphony of clattering scrolls, murmured debates, and the occasional shriek of a rogue experiment from Bianca's lab. Marya leaned against the balcony railing, her void veins still faintly glowing from the previous night's spa disaster. Below, the golden river snaked through the city, its waters glittering like liquid sunlight. Eternal Eclipse hummed lazily at her back, its crimson runes dimmed to a contented rosy pink.
"Enjoying the view, Mary?" Master Gaius materialized beside her, puffing his kiseru pipe. The cherry-scented smoke curled into the shape of a grinning skull.
"Tch. Just avoiding Natalie's 'post-spa hydration protocol,'" Marya muttered, flicking a stray star-shaped glitter from her sleeve.
Gaius chuckled. "Avoidance is a skill. Which is why I'm assigning you a new skill today." He tossed her a scroll sealed with a pacifier-shaped wax stamp. "Guardian training exercise. Babysitting duty."
Marya's eyebrow twitched. "Babysitting. You're joking."
"Think of it as… combat improvisation," Gaius said, vanishing into another cloud of smoke. His voice echoed behind him. "Meet your recruits in the arboretum. And Marya? Try not to corrupt the youth."
The arboretum was a jungle of bioluminescent ferns, floating lily pads, and trees whose roots curled into natural playgrounds. Waiting on a mossy knoll were three tiny terrors:
Dalton Vesper, age 9: Grandson of Master Gaius, clutching a toy submarine twice his size. His grin promised mischief. Micah Ellington, age 8: Mayor Nanette's son, brandishing a stale baguette like a sword. "I'M THE VOID KING! FEAR ME!" Anna Penrose, age 12: Knox's daughter, sitting primly with a leather-bound journal titled How to Outsmart Adults: A Primer.
Beside Marya, Jax crossed his arms, his three-sectioned staff strapped to his back. "Babysitting. This is beneath us."
Celeste fidgeted with her katana's hilt. "I-I've never… um. Been around children."
Marya sighed. "Just keep them alive. How hard can it be?"
Spoiler: Very hard.
Dalton saluted, his toy submarine's "engine" (a stolen Dial from Bianca's lab) whirring to life. "Admiral Dalton reporting for duty! Mission: Invade the laundry room! They've got Auntie Hanna's secret cookie stash!"
Before Jax could react, the submarine shot forward, plowing through a hedge shaped like Giaus' face.
"HALT!" Jax barked, giving chase. "That's not—Why is there a cookie stash in the laundry room?!"
Dalton cackled, steering his sub toward a fountain. "DISTRACTION TACTIC!" He hurled a smoke pellet (courtesy of Charlie's "fun with chemistry" kit), engulfing Jax in pink fog.
Micah jabbed his baguette at Marya. "Teach me the DARKNESS SLASH, Lady Grumpy Veins! I wanna cut the moon in half!"
"That's not how swords work," Marya said, dodging a crouton projectile.
"LIES! Grandpa Gaius said you're half-void! DO THE THING!" Micah leapt onto a tree stump, swinging his bread-sword wildly. "VOIIIIIID SLAAAAAA—oof!"
He tripped, face-planting into a pile of glowing mushrooms. Marya smirked… until the mushrooms released a cloud of sparkly spores, turning Micah's hair neon green.
"...Okay, that's kinda cool," he said, admiring his reflection in Eternal Eclipse's blade.
Anna tapped Jax's leg. "You're it," she said sweetly, then vanished.
Jax scoffed. "Child's play. I'll have her found in—"
Five minutes later: Jax crawled through a ventilation shaft, his uniform smeared with algae. "How did she get into the archives?!"
Anna's voice echoed from a shadowy corner: "Rule 27: Always exploit your enemy's overconfidence."
"Like, Safety first!" Bianca declared, rigging the arboretum with a network of glowing force fields. "These'll, like, keep the kiddos in and you out of trouble!"
Reality:
The force fields zapped to life… trapping Riggs (who'd wandered in looking for Celeste) in a bubble.
"LET ME OUT!" he roared, pounding the walls. "I'M NOT A TODDLER!"
Dalton pressed his face against the field. "Cool! Can he do tricks?"
Anna cornered Knox during his patrol. "Pappa! I need to practice braiding for… uh… survival training!"
Knox's mustache twitched. "I'm not a doll, princess."
Anna whipped out her journal. "Page 42: 'A leader's strength is measured by his willingness to adapt.'"
Ten minutes later, Knox stormed into the atrium, his mustache braided into an elaborate fishtail. Guards bit their lips, tears of laughter streaming down their faces.
"SAY. A. WORD," Knox growled, "AND YOU'RE ON LATRINE DUTY."
Charlie wandered into the arboretum, clutching a tome titled The Taxonomy of Telepathic Sea Slugs. The kids froze.
"MONSTER!" Micah screamed, pointing at Charlie's algae-stained lab coat. "BOOK MONSTER! ATTACK!"
A hail of pillows (stuffed with bioluminescent feathers) pummeled Charlie.
"WAIT! I'M A SCHOLAR! NOT A MONST—" A pillow hit him in the face. "—FASCINATING! ARE THESE FEATHERS PHOTOSYNTHETIC?!"
By sunset, the arboretum looked like a warzone. Dalton's submarine was lodged in a tree, Micah's hair now resembled a radioactive dandelion, and Anna had somehow rigged the sprinklers to spray chocolate milk.
Jax slumped against a tree, his staff tangled in fairy lights. "This… was a disaster."
Marya flopped onto a lily pad, her veins pulsing gently. "Eh. They're alive. Mostly."
Celeste timidly approached, holding a flower crown Dalton had "gifted" her. "I-I think… they liked us?"
A tiny hand tugged Marya's sleeve. Micah grinned, his baguette now a splintered nub. "When I grow up, I'm gonna have cool void veins like you! And a sword that eats moons!"
Marya snorted. "Start with not tripping over mushrooms, kid."
That night, Master Gaius reviewed Marya's mission report:
Objective: Babysitting as Combat Training
Outcome:
- Laundry room "invaded" (cookie stash liberated).
- Knox's mustache now salon-certified.
- Riggs still trapped in force field (Bianca working on it).
Conclusion: Kids are tiny, feral pirates. Send help.
Gaius smirked, scribbling a note: "Promote Anna to Junior Strategist."
As laughter echoed from the atrium—now hosting an impromptu pillow fort—Marya gazed at the stars, Eternal Eclipse humming a lullaby. "Bedlam has is upsides," she murmured. And for once, she almost believed it.
*****
The Consortium's strategy room was a cavern of whispering shadows and flickering lamplight, its walls lined with maps pinned by daggers and shelves groaning under stolen World Government reports. Vaughn leaned over the central table, dark circles under his eyes betraying three sleepless nights spent debriefing their Germa mission. Across from him, Head Librarian Nanette Ellington stood poised as ever, her crimson lips curving into a smile that didn't reach her piercing gaze.
"Bootleg Island," she said, tapping a file stamped with a crescent moon. "Basic artifact retrieval. The Celestial Astrolabe—a navigation tool linked to the Void Century. Intel suggests it's gathering dust in a forgotten vault. In and out. No drama."
Vaughn's jaw tightened. Behind him, the submarine bay buzzed with activity—mechanics cursing, Bianca's force fields humming, Harper's muffled shriek about "unsightly rust stains." He glanced at the infirmary wing, where Natalie had finally cornered Riggs for a "mandatory stress assessment."
"Respectfully, ma'am," Vaughn said, "my team's overdue for downtime. Marya's still adjusting to her cursed sword, Charlie's deciphering Germa's explosive recipe book, and I'm pretty sure Jax is one more 'routine mission' away from adopting Knox's mustache as a personality trait."
Nanette's smile sharpened. She slid a photograph across the table—a bronze astrolabe etched with constellations, its center cradling a pulsing sapphire. "This took priority. The Council's orders. Consider it… a vacation. Bootleg's a backwater. The only threats there are sunburns and bad rum."
Vaughn stared at the artifact. The sapphire's glow mirrored the eerie light of Marya's void veins. Too familiar. "And if the intel's wrong?"
"Then improvise." Nanette turned to leave, her heels clicking like a countdown. "Gear up. You depart at dusk."
Vaughn found Charlie and Marya in the library's celestial atrium. Charlie was knee-deep in scrolls, muttering about "stellar alignment algorithms," while Marya practiced knife throws at a dartboard labeled Nao's Ego.
"New mission," Vaughn said, tossing the file between them. "Bootleg Island. Artifact grab."
Marya caught a dagger mid-air, eyeing the astrolabe photo. "Let me guess—'simple,' 'no drama,' and 'totally not cursed'?"
"Nanette's exact words."
Charlie adjusted his glasses, zooming in on the sapphire. "Fascinating! This gem's composition matches Skypiean dials but with void-century alloy layers. If I cross-reference—"
"No cross-referencing," Vaughn cut in. "We're in, out, and done. No side quests."
Marya snorted. "Famous last words." She sheathed Eternal Eclipse, its blade whispering a low, hungry hum. "But fine. Better than listening to Harper rant about Knox's 'bedazzled blunder' all week."
At dusk, the trio boarded the Consortium's submarine. Charlie clutched the astrolabe's dossier like a holy text, while Marya leaned against the airlock, her void veins flickering faintly.
"Bootleg's coordinates are… shifty," Charlie said, frowning at the navigation console. "The island doesn't appear on normal Log Poses. We'll need to surface at these tidal coordinates during a moonrise—"
"Just get us there, professor," Marya said, polishing her sword with a scowl. "The sooner we grab this trinket, the sooner I can nap."
Vaughn stared through the viewport as the submarine descended into ink-black waters. The astrolabe's sapphire glinted in the file photo, its light too sharp, too knowing. Basic. Simple. No drama. The words rang hollow, drowned out by the creak of the hull and the whisper of Marya's cursed blade.
As the engines thrummed to life, Charlie hummed a sea shanty under his breath, oblivious. Marya closed her eyes, her veins pulsing in time with the submarine's vibrations.
The sub breached the waterfall's roaring curtain, seawater slicing off its reinforced hull as they plunged into Bootleg Island's hidden cove. Marya leaned against the viewport, her breath fogging the glass as the volcanic crater loomed into view—a jagged maw split between fire and civilization. Vaughn whistled behind her, twirling his double-sided ax, Light Bringer, like a baton. "Place hasn't changed," he said, sunlight glinting off his dreads. "Still looks like a dragon's bad haircut."
Charlie adjusted his glasses, scribbling furiously in his field journal. "Fascinating! The magma flows here defy all known geological principles—ah!" The submarine lurched, sending him stumbling into Marya. She steadied him with a smirk, her obsidian blade, Eternal Eclipse, clinking against the bulkhead. "Save the lectures for after we're not crashing, yeah?"
The Flare Up Tavern hummed like a beehive kicked by a giant. Lanterns enchanted with flickering flame-moths cast wild shadows over pirates, mercenaries, and a horned man arm-wrestling a fishman over a barrel of pickled eels. Poppy the skunk mink bounded over, her poofy monochrome tail swishing as she balanced three tankards on a tray. "Hey! Ooooh, Your back! Auset'll wanna know—special discount for return customers!" She winked, dropping mugs of spiced ale sloshing with edible gold flakes.
Marya slid onto a dragonbone stool, her mother's notebook thudding onto the bar. Charlie immediately hunched over it, muttering about "triangulating vowel patterns in Poneglyphic declensions." Vaughn flagged down Poppy again. "Two volcanic crab platters, extra chili oil. And whatever he's having." He jerked a thumb at Charlie, who absentmindedly pointed to a menu item called "Mystery Stew (Don't Ask)."
"So," Marya tapped a page where her mother's sketches of a winged artifact blurred into cryptic runes, "this symbol—here—does it read 'gate' or 'trap'?" Charlie's eyes lit up. "Ah! Contextually, given the Wano dialect's influence on mid-century Poneglyphs, it's more likely a compound ideogram meaning 'gateway born of sacrifice'—oof!"
Vaughn's ax handle thunked onto the notebook, cutting him off. "Priorities, nerds. We've got six hours before the magma tides shift, and Sterlyn's gonna make us bathe in vinegar just to enter his shop." He hesitated, uncharacteristically serious. "Also… this'll be my last run. I'm joining the Home Guard."
Silence. A drunk pirate chose that moment to vomit into a potted fern.
Marya blinked. "You're… retiring? To babysit dusty archives?"
"Nah. More like 'protect the Tree from idiots who think petrified wood's a souvenir.'" Vaughn grinned, but his usual swagger faltered. "Harper's… uh… planning the ceremony. Wants peacocks. Peacocks, Marya."
Charlie slumped. "Who'll remind me to eat during excavations?"
"You'll live." Vaughn flicked a chili seed at him. "Probably."
A commotion erupted by the door—Sterlyn's assistant, Evolet, marched in, scattering candy wrappers like breadcrumbs. Behind her, Sterlyn himself loomed in a plague-doctor mask, dousing the floor with vinegar from a jeweled spray bottle. "Move," he snapped at a sneezing patron, "or I'll sell your lungs to the highest bidder."
Marya snapped the notebook shut. "Focus. Artifact first… existential crises later."
The tavern's din swirled like a storm—laughter, clinking glasses, a bard's off-key shanty about a mermaid and a barrel of rum—but in the shadowed corner by the rusted hearth, the air hung cold and still. Casimir leaned back in his chair, a half-finished glass of wine forgotten in his gloved hand. A quarter danced over his knuckles in a silver blur, click-click-clicking like a clockwork serpent. His eyes, sharp as flint, tracked Marya through the crowd.
That sword… those veins…
Her obsidian blade devoured the lantern light, its crimson runes pulsing faintly. Casimir's quarter froze mid-roll.
Across the room, Marya flipped open her mother's journal, its pages yellowed and frayed. A sketched symbol flashed—a winged circle inked in Elisabeta's meticulous hand.
Ah.
Casimir's lips curled. So the little viper survived.
Memories flickered: Elisabeta's defiance on that rain-lashed cliff, her research notes burning in his grip, her daughter—just a brat then—screaming into the storm as he vanished with the World Government's praise ringing in his ears.
The quarter dented under his grip.
"Captain…?" Onyx whispered, her Gatling gun leaning against the table. She'd spilled chili oil on her heels again. "You're doing the… uh… face."
Teivel, slouched beside her with a tavern wench half-asleep on his shoulder, snorted. "The 'I'm-a-psychopath' face? Yeah, he's definitely plotting murder." He flicked a peanut at Casimir. "C'mon, boss. Let's gut someone already. I'm bored."
Casimir didn't blink. His Haki prickled, tendrils of malice seeping into the air. A drunk pirate nearby suddenly choked on his ale, clutching his chest.
Marya stiffened. Her hand drifted to Eternal Eclipse.
"Something wrong?" Vaughn asked, mouth full of crab.
"...No." She shook her head. "Thought I smelled rot."
Casimir's laugh was a soft, venomous thing. He rose, his pristine coat pooling like ink around him. The quarter clattered onto the table, spinning wildly. "Onyx. Send a Den Den Mushi to SWORD. Tell them I've found Elisabeta's legacy."
Teivel perked up. "Ooooh, legacy! She the one who made you look like an idiot?"
The room's temperature dropped.
Onyx squeaked, dragging Teivel under the table as Casimir's fist slammed down, cracking the wood. His shadow loomed monstrous on the wall—a velociraptor's jagged silhouette, teeth bared.
"Careful, Lieutenant," Casimir murmured, straightening his cuffs. "Or I'll let you entertain her first… with your insides."
He strode toward the exit, the crowd parting like wheat before a scythe. At the door, he paused, glancing back. Marya met his gaze—golden eyes, cold as a sniper's scope—and for a heartbeat, the tavern's noise died.
Then he was gone.
"Yeesh," Vaughn muttered. "Who pissed in his wine?"
"Probably himself," Charlie said, squinting at the quarter embedded in the table. "This is pre-war East Blue currency! Incredibly rare!"
Marya stared at the journal, her mother's symbol swimming in her vision. Rot, indeed.
Somewhere in the volcanic haze, a raptor screeched.
As they rose, a tiny figure peeked from behind the bar—Koa, Auset's son, his beanie slipping to reveal a glimmering third eye. He took one look at Marya's void-cursed veins, screamed, and vanished into the kitchen.
Vaughn snorted. "Charming kid."
"He's eight," Marya deadpanned.
"So's my patience. Let's go."
The trio shouldered through the crowd, Charlie still rambling about declensions, Vaughn humming a wedding march under his breath, and Marya smirking—though her grip on Eternal Eclipse tightened just a fraction.