OPTC Chapter 348: Lab! I'm Back!
The towering Reverse Mountain shot up into the clouds, waves slamming against the Red Soil Continent. Compared to the vast land and sea, the canals along the mountain looked like little streams, and the Amber—anchored near the Red Soil Continent—seemed tiny and insignificant.
Artoria pulled on a white coat and wrapped a blue scarf around her neck. Reverse Mountain's climate leaned toward that of a winter island; a little respect in the wardrobe was appropriate. Zhang Da Ye, however, secretly wanted to tuck a blue-hemmed blanket around her instead.
Splash! Shark Chili burst from the water and thudded onto the deck. "Course confirmed. Hard left rudder, full!" he called.
Artoria spun the wheel quickly and adjusted the Amber's heading in time with Shark Chili's instructions.
"Brace yourselves," Shark Chili warned. "The current ahead will be furious. The rudder will be hard to handle—one mistake and the Amber is done for!"
"Leave it to me," Artoria said calmly, hands steady on the wheel. Her blue scarf fluttered behind her and her golden hair gleamed in the sunlight; she looked utterly dependable.
—That is, if there weren't a certain cat and a certain man next to her holding ice cream for her, and the cat had even placed a small stool under his paws.
Ye Yan looked at the mismatched trio of Zhang Da Ye, Tom, and Artoria and barked, "Hey! This is serious business! Are you sure you want to go in like that?"
Zhang Da Ye shoved an ice cream into Artoria's hand and, after she took a bite, turned back and said, "If you're scared, wear that blue outfit—the one with the droplet hood. If the ship sinks you can complete your performance art piece, 'Gaze in the Green Waves.' Very fitting."
Ye Yan roared, "If it sinks it'll be 'The Wronged Ghost in the Waves'!"
"Nonsense. Brook's the ghost; you don't even qualify," someone muttered.
Normally Brook would crack a skull joke here, but he couldn't. He stood frozen, staring at Reverse Mountain like his gaze could pierce straight through the rock.
Shark Chili patted him and warned, "Stop spacing out. Find something to hold on to. We'll ride an upward current to climb the mountain—don't get thrown off."
"Ah—yes, got it, thanks." Brook grabbed a railing. He'd been to Reverse Mountain before; he knew the drill.
"Everyone else, hold on! Prepare to climb!" Shark Chili shouted.
"Aye!" Everyone grabbed whatever fixed they could. Zhang Da Ye stuffed the remaining ice cream into Artoria's mouth so she'd eat quickly, then grabbed the rail at the Amber's prow.
Tom, watching Zhang Da Ye, mimicked him—stuffing another ice cream into Artoria's mouth—and then hugged... the little stool beneath his feet.
"You silly cat," Zhang Da Ye muttered, pulling Tom over. "Is the stool holding you or are you holding the stool?"
Tom blinked blankly, as if it was all the same. If you held on to something, wasn't that the point?
"Ooh—so cool." Artoria endured the dubious feeding—four ice creams shoved into her mouth—chewing and swallowing the cones with an uneasy look at the hugging pair.
Luckily she hadn't forgotten her duty. She handled the wheel like a professional rider and guided the Amber into Reverse Mountain's canal.
The canal entrance was turbulent, a rushing waterway that pushed the Amber swiftly upward along the mountain. The hull lay parallel to the rock face, the bow tilting skyward. Zhang Da Ye held Tom with one arm and clutched a railing with the other to keep from sliding upright on the deck.
"Wow!" Rui Meng Meng, Perona, Wendy, and Xia Lulu cried out—the feeling of the ship climbing was bizarre and thrilling.
Perona had been brought from the West Sea to the Grand Line by Moria before, but that journey hadn't involved Reverse Mountain—this was her first time experiencing anything like this.
Ye Yan gaped, "Water really can flow uphill. I'd heard about it, but seeing it is something else."
Zhang Da Ye shrugged. "Some complicated explanation about currents and the Four Seas... the science stuff. Doesn't matter—this world's governed by Newton's little brother anyway."
As they climbed higher, the canal's current showed no sign of slowing—still strong, still fast. Thanks to Artoria's mastery at the wheel, the Amber held steady and didn't veer wildly despite the furious flow.
After a while the air grew damp and heavy. Rui Meng Meng brushed a wet fringe from her forehead. "What a fog!"
"It's not fog," Wendy corrected. "It's clouds—we've reached the cloud layer. The air's thinner up here."
"Clouds? Oh." Rui Meng Meng reached out curiously, only to snag handfuls of tiny droplets and a few fine ice crystals that melted instantly on her skin.
She looked back to gauge their height, but the world was a blur of white; visibility collapsed into a soft, blank haze.
Soon the Amber punched through the cloud layer and reached the summit. At the top, four canals—each fed from one of the Four Seas—converged. Streams collided, merged, and formed the single downward river that funneled water back into the Grand Line.
Mist and spray rose above the canal, and sunlight split it into bands of color.
"It's a rainbow! A round rainbow!" Rui Meng Meng and Perona pointed with excitement.
"How beautiful!" Wendy and Xia Lulu breathed.
"Hold tight—the ship's going to fly!" Zhang Da Ye, ignoring the mood, warned.
At one moment the Amber rode an upward surge that carried them over the mountain crest and, propelled by the force of three other currents, flipped them into the descending canal.
"Ooo!" Everyone felt themselves briefly weightless. Luckily, they all hung on to fixed points and weren't flung overboard.
Only Zhang Da Ye's arm seemed to stretch a fraction before snapping back into place.
Artoria kept her grip on the wheel, guiding the Amber safely downstream as speed increased. For Zhang Da Ye, it was the most thrilling high-mountain ride he'd ever experienced. No winding rapids, but the height alone—thousands of meters—was enough to make his heart race. If this had happened before he crossed over into this life, he wouldn't have dared try it.
The descent was far faster than the climb, testing the ship's build. Rudders snapping and hulls scraping cliff walls were common dangers here.
But the Amber was built by the brother of the world's top shipwright—quality timber originally intended for the Sun Pirates—so the hull was solid. With Artoria's skill at the helm, the run stayed smooth.
Only Tom's figurehead's heart thudded violently when no one watched.
"We can see the sea!" Shark Chili exhaled. As navigator, this had been his second close call—good to have survived.
But the danger wasn't over. Shark Chili spotted a massive dark shape ahead. "What is that? A mountain? I didn't hear about another mountain right after Reverse Mountain—the entrance looks blocked!"
"We're going to die!" Perona's face went pale; she looked like a comic wigging-out scene.
Tom's reaction was even more exaggerated—his eyeballs popped clean out and rattled across the deck with slapstick noise. They bounced back into place and Tom clung to Zhang Da Ye, trembling.
Official life charts put Lab's length at four hundred meters, but the beast before them looked far larger. Zhang Da Ye wondered whether the four hundred meters was just the visible tip above water.
"Can we jump ship now?" Ye Yan calculated quickly—maybe Jin Er Peng could ferry him and Perona away, Xia Lulu could move elsewhere, summoning a Chaos Beast below to cushion their fall. With some luck they'd live; leaving the Chaos Beast to its fear of water was less important than saving lives.
"That's not a mountain. It's a living thing—some kind of Sea King." Artoria drew her sword. "At this point I'll have to cut it open."
Zhang Da Ye didn't doubt her ability—he doubted whether she'd already calculated how much meat it contained. Cutting it open, however, could cause disaster.
"No! Don't! That's—Lab! That's Lab!" Brook shouted, stumbling between Artoria and the bow, sobs spilling out. "He's been waiting here for us. He's still here! Forty years—forty years, Lab! Waaa!"
Brook felt a mountain of guilt. He'd promised they'd be back in two or three years, but they'd made Lab wait for forty. The tiny Lab of their memories had grown into this enormous creature...
For a moment Brook ignored the risk of being crushed on Lab's broad back. He couldn't stop himself.
"Don't panic. There's a way—slow the ship first!" Zhang Da Ye yelled. "Wendy, come to the bow!"
"Yes!" Wendy scrambled, fell once, then clambered upright and rushed to the prow.
"Shark Chili—can a Giant Sharkder top hold on here?" Zhang Da Ye asked.
"Worth a try. With this slope and current, there's no easy way to get leverage," Shark Chili answered.
Wendy began her spell. She planted her feet on the bow, gripped Tom's figurehead, filled her cheeks, and a magic circle formed. "Heavenly Dragon's—Roar!"
A tornado-like blast, wildly disproportionate to Wendy's small frame, erupted like a dragon's breath. From the side it looked as if the Amber exhaled.
The ship's speed dropped sharply. Once Wendy's magic faded, speed crept up again.
"It worked!" Perona hugged Rui Meng Meng and cheered. "Wendy, you're amazing!"
"Nice job, Wendy!" Zhang Da Ye called. "One more like that at the right moment."
"Okay!" Wendy clenched her tiny fists and focused.
"Now!"
"Heavenly Dragon's—Roar!"
The Amber slowed again. From their current height Ye Yan estimated that if they deployed Chaos Beasts beneath them, the ship and its people could be saved.
"Wendy, come back." Artoria said suddenly. "Hold tight—there's a gap between the whale and the cliff. Big enough to slip through. At this speed we can make it."
"Wooooaaaarrr!" The usually placid Lab gave a long, resonant bellow.
"Ow!" The shout hurt everyone's ears; people instinctively covered them. Lab's cry was massive—and might have included ultrasonic components—so close it felt like someone playing a reed instrument inside the skull, making heads throb.
Artoria, barely disoriented, guided the Amber with surgical precision through the narrow gap between Lab and the rock and brought them to a stop on a shore about a hundred meters from Lab.
Near the beach stood a lighthouse. Under it an old man with white beard and hair sat in a deck chair reading a newspaper. A cluster of yellow and purple petals adorned his head; in a world full of strange people, Zhang Da Ye couldn't tell at first if the petals were ornamental or growths from the man's scalp.
Noticing the commotion, the man—Crocus—looked up. "Another ship entering the New World? That flag is—"
Brook could no longer restrain himself. He leapt from the ship and landed lightly on the shore, running straight toward Lab.
Crocus, who had assumed the Rumba Pirates had been wiped out or fled the Grand Line, didn't recognize Brook at first. He thought Brook intended harm and shouted, "Hey! What are you doing?"
"Lab! I'm back!" Brook shouted Lab's name and broke down. Tears flowed again as he fell to his knees and begged, "I'm sorry! We kept you waiting! I'm so sorry!"
Crocus, hand on his harpoon, froze. Something about the voice felt familiar...
Lab's huge pupils shifted. Brook's silhouette resolved in his memory and merged with that remembered shape—this was the one. Lab's heart swelled.
He wanted to bellow back, but he just wanted to hear Brook speak more. That voice—no mistake—it was them. They had come back.
"I know I look different now, and maybe it's hard to recognize me. But—don't you remember this crazy hairstyle?" Brook sobbed, images of Lab as a pup playing with the crew flooding his mind.
Someone once said, 'Look, Brook's hair is just like Lab's head!' Even after forty years that memory played over in Brook's ears. He sobbed and then screamed hoarsely, "Everyone always said my afro was exactly like your head! I'm—I'm Brook!!!"
"Wooo—woo—whaaarrr!" Lab tried to make the same childish, high-pitched noises he used long ago. He dove and popped his head back up, drawing near the shore and staring at Brook with enormous, gleaming eyes—joy and grievance mixed in the sound.
Brook, you fool—how could I not recognize you? I heard your voice right away! Your afro is one of my precious memories! Why did you think I wouldn't know you? Time may have stretched and stretched, but my longing never faded a bit.
And... why did you make me wait so long? Why didn't you come back sooner? Still, you must have your reasons—tell me everything.
Most of all, it's so good that you returned. Is everyone... all right?
Powerstones plz...
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