Chapter 108: The Jaya Detour and the Awakening

The flight to Jaya was going to take some time. Far above the ocean, out of sight of Marine radar and the World Government’s prying eyes, the Titan’s Glory sailed smoothly through the night sky, pulled by the colossal Sky-Roc Jade Clone.

The previous night, I had pulled Jacob aside. I explained to him that Compound V was a super-soldier serum from our old world. While it gave temporary boosts to those who already possessed superpowers, like Devil Fruit users, it acted as a permanent catalyst for someone like him. The Longarm tribe had unique biology, but no innate supernatural powers. It was the perfect blank canvas. I handed him the vial, told him to drink it, and he promptly passed out for eight straight hours.

Now, standing on the lawn deck in the crisp morning altitude, Jacob was staring at his double-jointed hands with absolute awe.

“Did you figure it out?” I asked, leaning against the mainmast with Ace, Maria, and Peter watching closely.

Jacob grinned, walking over to a sea-prism reinforced training dummy. “Yeah. It’s insane. Watch this.”

Jacob threw a casual, incredibly light jab. Tap. His knuckle barely grazed the thick wood.

He stepped back, lowering his hands. A full three seconds passed. Then, Jacob snapped his fingers.

KRA-KOOM!

A deafening, localized shockwave erupted exactly where his knuckle had grazed the wood. The heavy dummy was violently blasted off its hinges, tearing a chunk of the deck with it.

“What the hell was that?!” Peter yelled, jumping back.

“I’m calling it Twin Impact,” Jacob explained, his eyes shining with excitement. “Wherever I land an initial physical impact, I can remotely create a second impact at that exact site, completely at my discretion. And the second hit is massively stronger than the first one. It works on objects, and I’m pretty sure it works on people, too.”

“That is genuinely terrifying,” Ace laughed, adjusting his hat.

“Now that your bodies are ready, it’s time for the weapons,” I said, pointing to the three silver hexagonal plates they were holding. “BusoRenkin cores. To awaken them, you don’t need to focus or meditate. The core will automatically know your soul. Just smear a drop of your blood onto the alchemical circle.”

Jacob went first, biting his thumb and wiping it across the silver plate.

The metal liquefied in a flash of brilliant light, flowing up his arms to materialize as a pair of sleek, crimson boxing gloves with thick, black bandage wraps that coiled all the way up to his shoulders.

Since the weapon bonded to his soul, the inherent knowledge of its mechanics immediately flooded Jacob’s mind. “Whoa. Okay, I know what this is. It’s called Star Combo.”

“What does it do?” I asked, genuinely curious. The BusoRenkin shaped themselves, no one knows their ability before they manifested.

“It’s a chain multiplier,” Jacob explained, throwing a few test punches. “For every consecutive blow I land on a target, the power of the next punch doubles. But there’s a catch, the blow has to land. If I throw a punch while the combo is ongoing and it misses, the chain is completely broken and I have to start over from zero. The black bandages absorb the kinetic energy of the recoil, and if I build up a high enough combo, I can release all the stored power as a massive energy beam.”

“High risk, high reward. Perfect for a boxer,” I nodded.

Maria stepped up next. As her blood hit the core, the metal expanded into the air, forging itself into a levitating, robotic creature. It had a serpentine body made of interlocking bone-like columns, a bird-like bill, and eight metallic wings. It hummed as it hovered obediently beside her.

Maria’s eyes widened behind her mask as the data rushed into her head. “Oh, this is awesome. Her name is Garuda.”

“An independent familiar,” Law noted from the doorway. “Fascinating.”

“She has an ability called Star Rage,” Maria grinned, petting the bone-serpent’s head. “She can allocate virtual mass to objects or people. Garuda can also shape-shift. She can turn into a heavy club, a whip, or coil around me like a shield. If she’s in shield form, she has kinetic dissipation, she literally nullifies the majority of the power of any attack that hits her.”

Peter was last. He shifted into his massive, hybrid Spinosaurus form and pressed his claw to the plate. The silver metal flowed over his torso, forming a sleek, high-tech vest harness that strapped securely around his chest.

“Ghost Touch,” Peter announced, his deep dinosaur voice echoing across the deck. Immediately, his massive form shimmered and faded completely out of sight.

“Invisibility?” Ace asked, looking around.

“And intangibility,” Peter’s disembodied voice replied. “And it’s not like a Logia. You can’t detect or interact with me using basic Observation or Armament Haki. The only thing that can touch me when I’m phased is Conqueror’s Haki. The vest also absorbs ambient heat so I can fire laser beams, and I can share the ghost abilities with anyone I physically touch.”

Peter flickered back into the visible spectrum, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Alright, final gifts,” I said, pulling four golden rings out of my coat pocket. “These are Nega Bands, well, Nega Rings. They convert your mental energy, your Haki, into a physical power boost. They also allow you to generate forcefields, fly, and perform short-range teleportation up to ten meters.”

I tossed one to Jacob, Maria, and Peter, who eagerly slipped them onto their fingers.

“Wait,” Peter frowned, looking closely at the ring. “You said these are Nega Bands? Like… from the Kree Empire? From the Marvel universe?”

“Yep,” I casually replied.

Jacob’s jaw dropped. “How the hell do you have an item from the Marvel universe in this world?!”

“We had a chance to take an interdimensional trip to the Marvel universe a while back,” I shrugged. “Picked up some souvenirs.”

“You went to the Marvel universe without us?!” Maria shrieked, entirely scandalized. “You jerk! I could have met Spider-Man!”

“You get an interdimensional vacation and we get dropped into the bodies of wanted criminals being hunted by Marines?” Jacob crossed his arms, giving me a deeply sassy glare. “Wow. Worst older brother ever.”

I laughed, holding the final ring out to Ace.

Ace looked at the golden ring, then up at me. He smiled warmly, adjusting his orange hat. He glanced over his shoulder, where the massive Whitebeard insignia was proudly tattooed across his back.

“I appreciate it, Victor. I really do,” Ace said softly. “I love this family. But I’m a Whitebeard Pirate first and foremost. Wearing a symbol of power from another crew… it just wouldn’t feel right.”

I smiled, respecting the absolute loyalty he held for Edward Newgate, and put the ring away.

“Alright,” I said, my Warlord aura suddenly flaring, dropping the temperature on the deck. “The sightseeing is over. The Hell Training starts right now.”

I raised my hand, tapping into the deep reserves of my arcane magic. “Summon: Gravity Gorilla.”

A hulking silverback gorilla composed entirely of shimmering emerald energy dropped from the sky, beating its massive chest. Instantly, the ambient gravity on the lawn deck multiplied tenfold.

Ace, Jacob, Maria, and Peter were violently driven to their knees, gasping as the crushing weight pressed them into the floorboards.

“Stand up!” I barked. “Gammamon! Palmon! Show them what the Verdant Abyss is made of!”

“Gammamon Digivolve to… BetelGammamon!” “Palmon Digivolve to… Togemon!”

The deck erupted into absolute chaos.

Ace roared, igniting his flames to counter the pressure, and launched himself at BetelGammamon. But the gravity was too much, and the Champion-level Digimon was merciless. BetelGammamon slipped under Ace’s Fire Fist and delivered a brutal, fiery uppercut that launched the Whitebeard Commander into the air. Before Ace could recover, BetelGammamon grabbed him by the leg and slammed him repeatedly into the reinforced deck, absolutely beating the tar out of him.

The rookies were faring no better. Togemon was terrifyingly fast. Jacob’s Star Combo kept breaking because Togemon dodged every strike, countering with blistering Lightspeed Punches that rattled Maria’s Garuda shield and knocked Peter completely out of his intangibility phase.

It was a brutal beatdown, setting the harsh baseline for the weeks to come.

By the late afternoon of the following day, the Titan’s Glory was cruising smoothly through the open, endless blue of the sky, miles above the ocean and far beyond the reach of any Marine outpost. The crew was scattered across the lawn deck, nursing an assortment of deep bruises and aching muscles from the relentless, crushing gravity sessions with Togemon and BetelGammamon.

I stood at the bow, watching the horizon, before turning back to the battered crew.

“Alright, gather around!” I called out, my voice carrying over the rushing wind. “While the physical conditioning is underway for our new members, we also have an arsenal we haven’t properly field-tested. Law, bring out the copies.”

Law stepped out of the lounge, carrying a small lockbox. He opened it, revealing a thick stack of freshly duplicated spell cards and a perfect clone of the blue Meeseeks Box. Thanks to the Duplicating Mirror, we had spent the morning mass-producing our one-time-use items. Now, we needed to see how the copies held up to reality.

“The mirror replicates matter perfectly, but we need to ensure the magical properties of these specific items carry over,” Law explained, holding up a duplicated Burst Stream of Destruction card. He tossed it to Maria. “You called dibs on the dragon laser. Let’s see it.”

Maria grinned behind her mask. She stepped up to the railing, facing out toward the empty, sprawling expanse of the ocean far below. She gripped the card and focused, injecting a sharp pulse of her Armament Haki into the heavy cardstock.

The card began to glow with a blinding, pure white light. It shattered into a vortex of digital pixels that rapidly expanded into the sky, weaving together to form a colossal, holographic construct of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. The beast let out a metallic, ear-splitting roar that shook the entire galleon.

“Holy crap…” Peter breathed, stepping back as the dragon opened its jaws.

A sphere of crackling blue energy formed in the dragon’s mouth. With a deafening boom, a massive, twenty-second continuous beam of pure disintegration energy fired down into the ocean. The sheer heat and kinetic force flash-vaporized a mile-long trench into the sea, sending massive geysers of steam into the atmosphere. The moment the twenty seconds were up, the dragon dissolved into light, and the card in Maria’s hand crumbled into a pile of fine gray dust.

“Well,” Robin noted, a dark, thoroughly amused smile on her face. “I believe we just acquired our own personal Buster Call.”

“That was amazing!” Maria cheered, shaking the dust from her hand.

“Next up, Reflect,” I said, pointing to Jacob and Ace. “Jacob, take a duplicated card. Ace, punch him.”

Jacob injected his Haki into the Reflect card. A faint, nearly invisible hexagonal shimmer formed around his body. Ace ignited his fist and lunged, throwing a heavy, fire-laced right hook squarely at Jacob’s jaw.

The moment Ace’s knuckles made contact with the shimmer, a sharp ping echoed across the deck. Jacob didn’t even feel the impact. Instead, Ace was violently launched backward, crying out in shock as his own force and flames rebounded directly onto his own body, sending him crashing into the mainmast with a bruised shoulder.

Jacob looked at the pile of dust in his palm, then at a groaning Ace. “Okay, this card is completely broken in a fight.”

“It essentially guarantees a free, counterattack against any opponent,” Law analyzed, quickly writing notes on a clipboard. “Now, Accompany.”

Law took a copied teleportation card, injecting his Haki. “I am targeting Bepo in the crow’s nest,” he announced.

Fwip.

Law completely vanished from the deck, reappearing instantaneously on the high wooden platform next to a startled Bepo, fifty feet in the air. The card turned to dust.

“Instantaneous repositioning, bypassing all physical barriers,” Law called down, looking highly satisfied.

“Alright, last card,” Jasmine said, walking over to Peter, who was wincing while holding his ribs, a parting gift from Togemon’s Lightspeed Punches. Jasmine activated a copied Breath of Archangel card.

The air above the deck filled with a warm, golden light. A towering, ethereal angelic entity materialized, clothed in flowing white robes. It hovered over Peter, leaning down to blow a gentle, sparkling breath over his battered torso.

Peter gasped. We could physically hear the cracked bone snapping back into perfect alignment, and the dark purple bruises on his skin faded away in an instant. The angel vanished, the card dusted, and Peter stood up, rolling his shoulders in complete disbelief.

“The pain is completely gone,” Peter said, patting his chest. “I feel like I just woke up from a full night’s sleep.”

“So the duplicates retain one hundred percent of the original’s abilities,” I confirmed, a wide grin spreading across my face. I looked at the duplicated blue box resting on the table. “And the Meeseeks Box?”

Jacob leaned over and pressed the button on the cloned box.

Poof.

“I’m Mr. Meeseeks, look at me!” the bright blue creature yelled, materializing in a puff of smoke exactly like the first one.

“Fix the training dummy I broke yesterday,” Jacob ordered.

“Ooh, can do!” The Meeseeks sprinted over to the shattered wood, moving with terrifying speed, and fully reassembled and bolted the reinforced dummy back together in minutes before vanishing into thin air.

I looked around the deck at my family. The awe and realization were setting in for all of them.

“Robin, Law, Brook” I said, crossing my arms. “Starting tonight, we will make sure that we have enough stock of each item in the vaults. I want every single member of this crew carrying at least five Reflect cards, five Archangel cards, one Accompany card and one Breath card on them at all times.”

“An entire crew of immortal, teleporting pirates carrying pocket dragons,” Law smirked, pulling his hat low. “The World Government has absolutely no idea what is about to hit them.”

[POV: Mont Blanc Cricket]

I sat on the porch of my half-castle, staring out at the endless, mocking blue of the ocean. My lungs ached from the bends. Another day of diving. Another day of finding nothing but mud and old wood.

“Excuse me.”

I blinked, looking up. Standing at the bottom of my steps was a young woman. She had dark hair, a warm but intense gaze, and carried a massive, ridiculous-looking hammer on her back.

“My name is Jasmine,” she said, offering a small, polite smile.

“I don’t get a lot of visitors out here,” I muttered, taking a drag of my cigarette. “What do you want, Jasmine?”

She walked up the steps and sat down right next to me, completely unbothered by my gruffness. She didn’t look at the ocean. She pointed straight up, toward the massive, dark cumulonimbus clouds hovering high above the sea.

“I want to offer you an adventure,” Jasmine said softly. “We’re heading up there. To the White-White Sea. My brother tells me there’s a City of Gold in those clouds.”

I froze. The cigarette nearly fell from my lips. My heart gave a violent, painful lurch in my chest.

“I know the story of Mont Blanc Noland,” Jasmine continued, her voice gentle but firm. “I know the world called your ancestor a liar. I know you’ve spent your entire life destroying your lungs in that ocean trying to find the truth to clear his name.”

I looked down at my hands. They were scarred and calloused from years of desperate searching. A heavy, familiar lump formed in my throat.

“You’ve been looking in the wrong direction, Cricket,” Jasmine said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “The Knock Up Stream launched half of Jaya into the sky four hundred years ago. Come with us. We have a ship that can fly. Come see the Golden City with your own eyes. Prove to yourself, and the rest of the world, that your family isn’t crazy.”

I stared at her. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, hot and unbidden. A lifetime of mockery, of isolation, of desperate hoping… all of it welling up at the simple offer of a flight to the sky.

“Masira! Shoujou!” I yelled, my voice cracking slightly.

My two massive, ape-like brothers bounded out from the trees, looking at Jasmine with suspicion.

“Pack your bags,” I ordered, standing up and tossing my cigarette aside. “We’re going to the sky.”

“Boss, are you serious?!” Masira gasped, scratching his head. “She says she has a flying ship! That’s completely absurd!”

“Look around, Masira!” Shoujou yelled, gesturing wildly to my half-castle. “We spend our days diving into whirlpools looking for a mythical city of gold! Absurd is our entire lifestyle! If she’s offering a ride to the clouds, we take it!”

I looked back at Jasmine, wiping my eyes with the back of my arm. “Lead the way, kid.”

An hour later, the three of us stepped onto the deck of the Titan’s Glory. I barely had time to process the sheer size of the galleon, or the fact that a giant gorilla made of green energy was currently torturing several people on the lawn, before a voice boomed from the bow.

“Everyone secure yourselves!” Victor commanded.

I grabbed the railing. A colossal emerald bird above the ship let out an ear-splitting shriek. With a violent, hurricane-force beat of its wings, the Titan’s Glory was ripped from the ocean.

We shot straight up into the air, piercing the thick, dark clouds at terrifying speed. I looked down as the Blue Sea vanished beneath us, my heart pounding in my chest. We were going to the heavens.