"Marcus, aren't you going to do something about all this gold?"
Nami was confused. With Marcus' abilities, he could strip this entire ship bare in minutes. Sure, gold wasn't exactly scarce to someone with his abilities, but this was still a massive fortune just sitting here.
"I'm curious what this thing was built for. Look at it. The hull design says 'ocean vessel,' but these propellers? Those look like they're meant for flying."
Nami examined the Ark Maxim more carefully this time, and yeah, something about it felt off. The ship was absurdly oversized, but where was the power source? Was it supposed to run on those propellers? The wooden paddles on the sides?
It looked impressive, but functionally? Nothing added up.
"So this thing can fly?"
"Probably," Marcus said. "And it'd be a shame to just dismantle it without understanding how it works. Besides, Chopper's already treated a bunch of the workers. We can just ask them."
Nami thought about it, then nodded. She was greedy, but that was back when she'd been desperately saving money. Now? She had more berries than she could spend in ten lifetimes. All this gold was tempting, but she wasn't desperate for it anymore.
Thanks to Chopper's medical skills combined with Minecraft food and potions, the workers who'd been on death's door were gradually coming back to life. Some of them looked completely bewildered by their suddenly healthy bodies, like they couldn't quite believe they weren't dead.
After all, most of them had been seconds away from meeting whatever afterlife awaited them. And now they were sitting up, completely healed, with no trace of their injuries or illnesses.
It was surreal as hell.
"Am I... dead?" one man asked, staring at his hands in disbelief.
That seemed to be the first reaction for most of them, assuming this was some kind of afterlife illusion. But then they spotted Gan Fall among the crowd, and reality started sinking in. Some looked relieved. Others looked devastated.
"We failed to protect you, didn't we, God?" one of them said.
Gan Fall's eyes welled up at seeing these loyal subordinates alive. He'd thought they were all dead.
"It's okay. You're all alive. That's what matters. And Enel... He is dead."
That news hit them. After years of nonstop forced labor under threat of death, hearing that their tormentor was gone should have been cause for celebration.
Instead, most of them just started crying.
Some from relief.
Some from grief for those who hadn't survived.
Some from the sheer emotional whiplash of the past few minutes.
Out of everyone who'd been imprisoned here, only about fifty had made it. The rest were dead.
Luffy watched the scene with unusually serious eyes. "Enel! I'm gonna find him and punch him right now!"
"Enel's already dead, you idiot," Nami said, grabbing his shoulder.
"Oh. Right." Luffy tilted his head, gave up trying to think about it, and just flopped down on the ground.
The rest of the Straw Hats stood quietly, witnessing the survivors' grief. The urge to drag Enel's corpse out and beat it some more was pretty strong.
Marcus hadn't hidden Enel's death from the crew. Luffy had just... not been paying attention to the details, as usual.
He thought back to the original story. If he remembered right, Nami had discovered one of the El Thor victims while riding around on a waver. That would have been one of these workers, except in that timeline, they'd all been dead.
But because he had killed Enel almost immediately upon arriving at Skypiea, these people had survived instead.
The crying gradually subsided as Gan Fall comforted his former subordinates, helping them process everything that had happened.
Marcus waited until things had calmed down a bit before asking, "I know this might not be the best time, but I'm really curious. This ship you've been building for six years, do any of you know what it's for?"
The fifty-odd survivors looked at each other, then shook their heads.
"We just followed the blueprints," one man said. "I never saw it activated even once."
"Same here."
"Me neither."
They all nodded in agreement.
Except for one guy, who hesitantly raised his hand. "Actually... it was activated once."
Everyone turned to stare at him.
"You saw it run?"
"We all saw it. You just didn't notice."
"Huh?"
The man cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed. "When the construction was finished, Enel came and touched those two golden spheres on the main throne with his hands. We were all standing on the deck at the time. Most of you probably didn't feel it, but... I'm certain the whole ship lifted off the ground. Just a little bit, but it definitely moved."
"Wait, really?"
The other workers started murmuring among themselves, trying to remember.
"Now that you mention it... something did happen."
"But we all thought we were finally going to be freed, so nobody was paying attention to the ship."
"Yeah, we were too focused on getting out of there."
They exchanged uncertain looks, unable to reach a consensus. That moment had been the closest they'd come to freedom since the project started, after all. Enel had promised they'd be released once the ship was complete.
Instead, the moment construction finished, he'd hit them all with lightning. The ones in front were instantly charred. The ones further back were paralyzed by the electrical current. Only those standing at the very back of the group had avoided death.
But they'd been dying slowly ever since.
"A flying ship," Gan Fall mused. "I've heard the priests and divine soldiers mention Enel's obsession with something called the 'Fairy Vearth.' Was he planning to use this vessel to reach the Blue Sea?"
"The Blue Sea isn't endless though," Marcus pointed out. "And doesn't Skypiea already have ways for normal ships to descend to the ocean?"
"That's true."
"So if it's meant to fly upward..." Nami laughed, mostly joking. "What, was he planning to go to the moon or something?"
But instead of laughing with her, everyone fell silent and started seriously considering it.
"Hey, come on. You're not actually... it's the moon. The moon in the sky."
Nami had meant it as a joke, but seeing fifty-some people suddenly deep in thought, plus Gan Fall's silence, she realized her throwaway comment might not be so far-fetched after all.
I think I understand why Enel destroyed his own homeland, Marcus thought while studying the Ark Maxim.
He knew from the original story that this ship was indeed meant to travel to the moon. But he was thinking about something else entirely, a pattern he'd noticed.
Enel was the god of Skypiea, and he'd used the Ark Maxim to destroy Angel Island.
Imu was the god of the World Government, and they'd used an Ancient Weapon to destroy an island.
In the Skypiea arc, they'd learned about Noland, who'd been executed for his claims about the City of Gold.
The Pirate King had also been executed, of course.
Imu had obtained the Mother Flame, which somehow powered their island-destroying attacks.
Enel had obtained the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, which powered his flying ship.
Both were essentially using their abilities as massive energy sources.
And both had enemies that perfectly countered them. Enel's weakness was rubber, Luffy. The natural nemesis of lightning.
So how would the Sun God Nika counter the "god" Imu?
He thought about the Drums of Liberation, and the fact that Gear Fifth's flame clouds were white instead of the normal color.
Marcus stood there thinking about gods and their natural enemies.
Imu possessed some kind of domination ability, the power to flip people's allegiances instantly, making them obey even without altering their memories. Like a game of Reversi, where black pieces surrounded by other black pieces would convert white pieces to their side.
And Nika was the unexpected white piece that refused to flip.
The resistance to domination was built right into the fruit itself. Marcus had proven that when he'd tried possessing Luffy, his ability simply didn't work on the rubber captain. Sure, possession required consent anyway, making it different from outright domination, but the Devil Fruit clearly demonstrated some kind of inherent resistance to control.
"So this is fate... destiny itself," Marcus muttered under his breath.
Unfortunately for him, the entire Straw Hat crew was standing close enough to hear.
They all turned to stare at him. After all, he had a habit of dropping cryptic comments like this. It was getting old.
Robin looked particularly frustrated. "What do you know?"
Just moments ago, Gan Fall had been explaining why Enel wanted to reach the Fairy Vearth in the first place. Then Marcus suddenly started talking about fate and destiny out of nowhere, as if Enel had been destined from birth to go to the moon.
It was baffling.
And if it really was fate or destiny... Marcus had just shown up and killed the guy. So what fate was there to speak of?
He snapped back to awareness and found everyone staring at him expectantly. He scratched his head awkwardly. "You know me. I just like saying stuff like that."
The crew's expressions turned deadpan.
Yes, they knew he liked saying cryptic shit.
But why? What was he hiding? Was being a mysterious riddler really that entertaining?
Vivi was studying him with an especially odd expression. Her Whisper-Whisper Fruit hadn't developed to the point of mind-reading yet, but even without using her ability, she could tell he was thinking about something way more complicated than he was letting on.
Seeing that he couldn't bluff his way out of this one, he decided to throw them a bone. Sort of.
"The fate I mentioned has to do with the D."
"What?"
Everyone's curiosity was immediately piqued.
The D.
Currently, the ship had two people with a confirmed D in their names. One was obviously their captain, Monkey D. Luffy. The other was Nefertari D. Vivi, though she'd only learned about it right before leaving Arabasta when her father told her. He hadn't explained anything beyond that.
Two names with D. One was royalty from an ancient bloodline. The other was from some tiny, no-name village in the East Blue. No matter how you looked at it, they shouldn't have any connection.
"Didn't you say the D was some kind of inherited will?" Vivi asked, confused. She'd specifically asked Marcus about this before, so it seemed like he was suddenly changing his story. Had he learned something new on Skypiea?
Robin's expression grew stranger. She'd naturally come across many references to the D in ancient texts during her years on the run, but they were always vague and shrouded in mystery.
"The D has also been called the 'natural enemy of the gods,'" Marcus said carefully.
That statement left everyone momentarily stunned.
"Huh?"
Their expressions shifted to confusion. What did that have to do with fate or destiny? And wasn't it Marcus, not Luffy or Vivi, who'd defeated Enel?
Vivi gave him a knowing look. "And here you keep saying your name doesn't have a D in it."
"Marcus D. Grey!" Luffy immediately suggested, inserting a D into Marcus' name.
Marcus waved that off.
"Enel is a Logia-type user with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit. He would've been a tricky opponent, don't you think?"
That question made everyone pause and seriously consider their own abilities.
Currently, only Marcus, Zoro, and Luffy had confirmed mastery of Haki. The others were still incredibly inexperienced with it, they could sense it sometimes, but their control was wildly unstable.
That was mostly because Marcus' possession ability was basically a cheat code for learning. Everyone in the Straw Hat crew had experienced what Haki felt like firsthand when he'd taken control of their bodies. That's why even Alvida could use Haki when Marcus was controlling her.
They'd all felt it. But feeling it and actually using it themselves were two completely different things.
Fighting a Logia-type lightning user in their current state? The difficulty would be absurd.
Even if Enel just stood there and let them attack him, his body's natural electrical discharge would zap anyone who made contact. Even with the diamond armor, defeating Enel would have been nearly impossible for most of them.
One by one, the crew mentally compared their own strength to what they'd seen of Enel's abilities.
They all shook their heads. Without solid Haki control, they couldn't reliably hit a Logia user's real body. Victory would have been... yeah, not happening.
Then everyone's eyes slowly turned toward Luffy.
The rubber captain looked around in confusion. "What? Why are you all staring at me?"
"Rubber doesn't conduct electricity, right?" Usopp said slowly.
Everyone's faces lit up with understanding. All at once, they got what Marcus had been hinting at.
Even without Haki, Luffy's Devil Fruit naturally countered the so-called "God" Enel. Rubber completely insulated against lightning.
Suddenly, all that talk about fate and destiny made perfect sense.
"Now that you mention it, that really does feel like destiny," Sanji admitted with a nod.
The others nodded along in agreement.
Seeing that the Straw Hats had successfully misunderstood in exactly the direction he'd intended, Marcus quietly exhaled in relief.
Crisis averted.
After this little philosophical interlude, the crew continued exploring and helping restore Skypiea.
As for the Ark Maxim, they decided to leave it intact. Dismantling the massive golden ship would require significant time and manpower, and right now, the Skypieans needed stability more than anything else.
As for Skypiea's magnetic field disappearing from the Log Pose network? Honestly, most people would never think to ride a Knock Up Stream to get here in the first place. And for those who already knew about Skypiea's existence, whether the island remained magnetized or not wouldn't make much difference.
Marcus made his way to a cavern beside one of the cliffs. He'd already excavated a four-by-four meter chamber specifically for placing a Nether Portal.
He was just about to light the obsidian frame when a massive snake head poked into the chamber.
"Hisss..."
Even without Vivi or Chopper around to translate, Marcus got the general idea.
"Fine..."
He dismantled the standard-sized Nether Portal he'd been building and started expanding the chamber. He kept digging and widening until the opening was large enough for Nola's entire head to fit through comfortably.
Marcus couldn't exactly bring her down to the Blue Sea, that would cause all sorts of problems. But the Nether had plenty of space. Letting the creature travel between Skypiea and the Nether wouldn't be an issue.
"Hisssss~"
Nola eagerly slithered through the enlarged portal.
Marcus couldn't help but chuckle at her enthusiasm. After watching the snake's body disappear completely into the purple swirling gateway, he stepped through himself.
He still needed to build a proper nest for his new... pet? Companion? Whatever Nola was to him now.
---
Above the bedrock layer in the Nether, Nola emerged and immediately froze.
She looked up at the grey, featureless sky and the endless flat wasteland stretching in all directions. Her eyes, which had seen centuries of the world's changes, couldn't quite process this alien landscape.
She raised her head and tasted the air. There was no distinct smell here. In fact, there was no smell at all.
Only silence and stillness.
Even a creature that had lived for more than eight hundred years couldn't help feeling unsettled by the emptiness of this place.
But the discomfort faded quickly when Marcus appeared beside her.
"Hiss! Hiss hiss!"
"This is a space created by my ability," he explained, though he wasn't sure how much Nola understood. "You should be able to survive here for short periods without any problems."
He looked around, getting his bearings. The Nether Portal had opened in a remote location, easily tens of thousands of blocks away from the island fortress he'd constructed earlier as a refuge point.
That was convenient, plenty of space for Nola to have her own territory without interfering with anything else.
Marcus quickly got to work building a shelter. Nothing fancy, just a simple box-shaped structure made of wood blocks with some lighting inside so it wasn't completely dark.
"From now on, this is your home here," he told her, gesturing to the dwelling. "There are similar buildings to the east, so don't destroy those. And if you see anyone, hide. Got it?"
"Hisss!"
Nola seemed to understand, or at least accept these conditions.
"But normally, you should stay on Skypiea. This place doesn't have much for you. Oh, and since you mentioned getting so hungry you were eating rocks, I've set up a food storage area here."
The so-called food storage pit was actually just a simple stone trough made of obsidian blocks.
Marcus started tossing cooked chicken into the trough, one stack at a time.
Nola's eyes immediately lit up when she saw the food. Even a single piece of Marcus' Minecraft food could satisfy her hunger for weeks. One bite was enough to keep her from feeling hungry for half a month.
If she could have unlimited access to this stuff, she'd never have to eat rocks again.
The giant snake practically drooled at the sight of the stone trough filling up with food.
Marcus found her enthusiasm amusing. What looked like individual pieces were actually stacks of a thousand each. He'd configured them that way because Nola could consume three to five hundred cooked chickens in a single bite.
Her appetite was ridiculous.
And that was just to not feel hungry, not even to feel full.
Fortunately, like most snakes, Nola only needed to eat once and could go for long periods without food. She wasn't the type to demand three square meals a day like humans did.
Seeing her eager expression, he felt the need to warn her. "These are all concentrated versions."
He tossed one bundle straight into Nola's mouth.
The snake looked confused by the tiny morsel compared to her massive mouth, but she carefully swallowed it anyway.
Just as she was about to flick her tongue for more, a powerful feeling of fullness suddenly hit her.
"Hisss!!"
Marcus noticed her shocked expression. "See? Like I said, concentrated. That one piece should keep you satisfied for about a month."
Her head bobbed up and down, acknowledging his words. Then she looked at the obsidian trough filled with compressed food, her eyes sparkling.
"Hiss hiss hiss!"
"You want more? One isn't enough?"
She nodded, then quickly shook her head.
Without Vivi or Chopper to translate, Marcus couldn't quite understand what she meant, but it didn't really matter.
"If you want to eat, go ahead. I'll come by regularly to check on things. If the supply runs low, I'll refill it."
Hearing his promise, Nola immediately extended her tongue and grabbed several more pieces of food. Then, satisfied, she coiled up to rest. Including the first thousand-piece serving, that made five thousand total.
Marcus couldn't help but wince at the cost. Each cooked chicken was worth 8 EMC. That meant he'd just fed her 40,000 EMC worth of food.
If he hadn't mastered the Nether ATM system by now, feeding this creature would've bankrupted him.
Seeing Nola settle in for a nap, he headed back toward the Nether Portal. He needed to make sure the gateway remained unobstructed since she'd need to pass through it freely.
After emerging back on Skypiea, he looked around and started digging upward through the cliff face. Soon, a massive square pit appeared, not the prettiest thing, but acceptable.
He could dress it up later with some of the giant trees and cloud shells that were everywhere on Skypiea. Make it look more natural.
No need to explain everything to Nola. The snake was smart enough to figure out she could come and go as she pleased.