"Then I wish you all good fortune in battle."
On the cloud shore of Angel Island, Gan Fall stroked his long beard and took his leave of Roger's crew.
"Oh, thanks for everything, Gan. Next time I am coming back for a drink," Roger said, shouldering a bulging sack of Skypiea goods without a shred of embarrassment.
Kael Grylls thought, Gan, you absolute genius. Wrong show, right energy.
"Captain, how are we getting down," Buggy asked, tugging Roger's sleeve and peering at the bottomless cloud ocean. "We can't just jump. We will splatter."
Gan Fall smiled and clapped his hands.
From beneath the clouds, something enormous and pink drifted up.
A giant octopus surfaced, big as a small island. Its head swelled like a hot air balloon and a forest of thick tentacles waved gently in the cloudsea.
"This is a Skypiea specialty, the octopus balloon," Gan Fall explained. "It can wrap your ship and adjust its buoyancy with gas. You will return to the Blue Sea safely."
"Oc… octopus," Buggy blanched. Nothing repulsed him like slick, boneless things.
Shanks bounced on his toes. "Sugoi. We are taking an octopus balloon home."
With the islanders' help, the massive octopus swaddled the Oro Jackson in its tentacles, leaving only the deck and masts exposed.
Heat puffed from its head. The ship eased free of the cloudsea and began to descend.
At first it was smooth. The crew watched the roiling clouds slide past like they were sailing down a vertical waterfall.
"Hey, Shanks, that cloud looks like Captain Roger's mustache."
"Kuhahaha, that is his nose hair, not his mustache."
"What."
"And the one next to it is your red nose, Buggy."
"Baka yarou. Say that again."
Their bickering cut off when a violent downdraft slammed into them without warning.
Startled, the octopus jolted and let out a wounded moan.
"Uboh."
The Oro Jackson lurched hard. Men pinwheeled across the deck.
"We are falling. We are going to die," Buggy wailed, hugging the mainmast. Snot and tears streaked his face while he rattled like a leaf.
"Kuhahaha. Now this is fun. Faster, big octopus," Roger roared into the wind as if riding a roller coaster.
"Roger, this is not the time," Gaban shouted, wrestling the helm.
Another bone-rattling jolt tipped the ship past forty-five degrees. Several sailors skidded shrieking toward the rail. Kael's eyes flashed. He stamped once.
A soft but stubborn counterforce rippled out from him, a broad cushion of compressed air that steadied both hull and bodies as if the deck had suddenly turned to spring steel.
He raised both hands and pressed at the air. A faint soothing wave lapped at the octopus.
"Easy there, big fella."
The pulse seemed to speak to the creature's nerves. The panicked giant calmed, its eight arms tightening again around the hull until the ship settled.
The squall passed as quickly as it had come.
When they punched through the final cloud layer and sunlight and salt wind washed over them, everyone felt reborn.
With a grand splash the Oro Jackson met the blue.
The octopus unwound its arms, bobbed its head in parting, then drifted upward and vanished.
Sayonara, tako-chan.
"Saved," Buggy groaned, collapsing boneless to the planks, soul halfway out of him.
Shanks slicked seawater from his face and laughed. "That was a rush. I want to do it again."
"Shut up."
Laughter rang across the wide sea, scouring away the scare.
Canvas filled. The ship cut for the next unknown.
Night fell. Moonlight poured over the ocean like quicksilver.
After the revel came quiet. Only the watch's footfalls and the steady smack of waves against the hull kept time.
Douglas Bullet stood alone at the bow, a bronze statue in moonlight, cords of muscle catching the silver. He stared ahead with no hunger for gold and no giddy itch for adventure, only a pure, burning will to fight.
Roger padded up behind him, unlit cigar at his lips.
"What are you thinking, Bullet."
Bullet did not turn. His voice was deep and even. "Roger. Captain."
Nice save, after glancing at the silhouettes of Kael, Rayleigh, and Gaban cooling in the shadows.
He faced Roger squarely at last and met his eyes.
It was a level gaze with no fear.
"I am leaving the ship."
The words came down like an axe. No room for bargaining. Even the air went tight.
In the shadows, Rayleigh's hand paused over the rag on his blade. By the rail, Gaban lowered his bottle. Arms folded, Kael watched, unsurprised.
Roger's smile faded. He did not ask why. He waited.
"I do not care about some so-called final island," Bullet said, each syllable hammered true. "Truth of history, mountains of treasure, none of it has anything to do with me."
His fists clenched until the knuckles popped. A pressure like a rising squall rolled off him.
"I have only one goal. Challenge every strong man in this world, surpass them all, and stand as the strongest. You included, Roger."
The look in his eyes was a drawn blade.
It was not a request. It was a declaration.
Silence pooled across the deck.
Shanks and Buggy poked their heads out of the hatch, heard that, and went stiff as boards.
Roger's answer surprised them all.
He blinked, then burst into peals of laughter that tore the night in two.
"Kuhahaha."
He laughed until his eyes watered, as if he had just heard the finest joke on earth.
"I see. So that is it. Good. Excellent." He scrubbed a thumb under one eye, stepped in, and slapped Bullet's shoulder. "That is what a man ought to say."
He looked into that furnace of ambition and felt no anger, only respect.
"If you are set on your own road, then walk it. If you want to be the strongest, then go challenge them. If you do not have at least that much fire, you do not deserve a spot on my deck."
The sheer largeness of him tugged something complicated across Bullet's face.
He had expected a fight. He did not expect this.
"Go," Roger said, grinning again. "But until I reach my end, I am not handing over the title of strongest to you."
"I will be waiting at the summit," Bullet replied, then turned for the rail.
The crew readied a skiff and laid in heavy supplies.
No one tried to stop him or talk him down. They understood. Monsters like them gathered here only until the winds of their own dreams changed.
Bullet dropped into the boat, set sail without a backward glance, and slid into the moonlit emptiness, away from the Oro Jackson.
"That guy just left," Buggy muttered, a knot in his voice.
Shanks watched the shrinking scrap of canvas and tightened his grip on his sword.
Roger tilted his chin to the star-sown sky, as if he could already see the invisible sea-lane to the end.
"All right, you lot. Quit gawking," he bellowed. "Our adventure is not over."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"