Chapter 27: The Amazons and the Gatekeeper

(Victor’s POV)

The final week on the Calm Belt beach was nothing short of idyllic.

With the pirate threat entirely eradicated and the sun shining brightly, the secluded crescent bay had become our own private paradise.

“I’m going to get you!” I roared, adopting an exaggerated, lumbering gait as I stomped through the shallow surf.

“The sea monster is hungry for Long-Arm soup!”

“No!

Run!” the oldest sister shrieked with absolute delight, grabbing the little Rabbit Mink’s hand as they splashed frantically through the water, trying to outpace me.

Gammamon was currently buried up to his neck in the white sand, perfectly content to serve as the structural foundation for the massive sandcastle the girls had built around him.

I lunged forward, catching the red-haired girl by the waist and spinning her around in the air as she giggled uncontrollably.

Then, the ocean began to bubble.

I stopped spinning, setting the girl down gently.

My Observation Haki spiked.

Rolling in from the windless, glassy expanse of the Calm Belt was a wall of thick sea-fog.

Cutting through the mist were two colossal, terrifyingly massive sea serpents—the Yuda.

Their scales gleamed with a toxic, lethal sheen as they effortlessly pulled a massive, ornate galleon styled like a Chinese junk ship into the bay.

The Kuja Pirates had arrived.

The girls, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, quickly scampered out of the water and huddled behind my legs.

The galleon dropped anchor with a heavy splash.

From the main deck, a tall, incredibly imposing woman leaped gracefully over the railing, landing on the soft sand with a heavy thud.

It was Boa Marigold.

She was massive, towering over me with her vibrant orange hair and a heavy, spiked shield strapped to her arm.

Her eyes were sharp, evaluating, and instantly hostile.

She took one look at the scene, a tall, dark-clad man standing over five cowering, wet little girls who had just been running away from him, and her misandrist instincts took over completely.

“You filthy, wretched man!” Marigold roared, drawing a massive guan dao polearm.

“Unhand those children immediately!”

“Wait, you misunderstand…..” I started, holding up a hand.

Marigold didn’t listen.

She lunged forward with terrifying, explosive speed, her heavy polearm sweeping in a lethal horizontal arc aimed directly at my neck.

The blade was instantly coated in the invisible, flowing black sheen of Kuja Haki.

To her credit, she was incredibly fast.

A normal South Blue bounty hunter would have been decapitated before they even blinked.

But I hadn’t spent my time on the island fighting normal bounty hunters.

I leaned back just an inch.

The Haki-coated blade whispered past my throat, close enough to ruffle my hair, completely missing its mark.

Marigold’s eyes widened in shock.

She immediately pivoted, using the momentum of her swing to launch a devastating thrust toward my chest.

I didn’t draw the Jade Wings.

I didn’t summon a clone.

I just stepped to the side, letting the blade glide past my ribs.

When she snapped the polearm back for a downward cleave, I casually raised my right hand, infusing my index and middle fingers with concentrated Armament Haki.

Clang.

I caught the flat of the heavy blade between my two fingers.

The kinetic shockwave kicked up a localized sandstorm around us, but I didn’t budge a single millimeter.

“How?” Marigold gasped, her jaw dropping as she struggled to push the blade down.

“A man in the South Blue…

possessing such refined Haki?

Evading my strikes without even looking?”

“Lady,” I said calmly, holding her weapon in place.

“I really don’t want to fight you.

We were playing tag.”

Before she could process my words, a small, terrified wail pierced the air.

I snapped my head to the side.

The youngest girl, the tiny Rabbit Mink, had fallen to her knees in the sand.

Tears were streaming down her face, her long ears trembling violently.

For me the fight instantly ceased to matter.

I let go of the blade.

Marigold stumbled forward, off-balance, but I was already gone.

I flooded my legs with Fa-Jin, crossing the twenty yards of beach in a microsecond.

The resulting sonic boom sent sand flying as I instantly appeared beside the crying little girl.

Marigold spun around, completely bewildered by the sheer, incomprehensible speed I had just displayed.

I had abandoned a life-or-death duel, turning my back on an armed Kuja commander without a second thought.

I dropped to my knees in the sand, my combat aura evaporating entirely.

“Hey, hey,” I said softly, my voice laced with frantic worry as I gently scooped the tiny Mink up into my arms.

“Are you okay?

Did you get hit by the sand?

Did you step on a shell?”

The little girl buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing loudly.

“No!

I was scared!

The big snake lady attacked you!

I thought she was going to hurt you!”

I let out a heavy breath, a wave of profound relief washing over me.

I rubbed her back soothingly.

“I’m okay, sweetheart.

Look at me.

I’m totally fine.

The big snake lady is just confused.

Nobody is hurt.”

The other four girls immediately rallied around me, stepping protectively in front of me and the crying Mink.

The oldest sister glared fiercely at the towering Amazon warrior.

“Leave him alone!” the sister yelled at Marigold.

“Victor is our hero!

He and Mr.

Gammamon destroyed a whole pirate fleet to keep us safe!

We were just playing a game!”

Marigold stood frozen on the beach, her polearm lowered.

She looked at the crater in the sand where I had been standing a second ago.

She looked at my terrifying Haki, and then she looked at how gently I was rocking the crying child, completely ignoring the threat behind my back to ensure the girl felt safe.

The hostility completely drained from Marigold’s face, replaced by a look of profound realization.

She planted the butt of her polearm into the sand and offered a formal, deeply respectful bow.

“I…

I apologize,” Marigold said, her voice completely devoid of its earlier venom.

“I allowed my prejudices to blind me to the reality of the situation.

I saw a man, and I assumed the worst.

Your speed to reach her side…

your Haki…

your gentleness.

You are an anomaly among your gender, Victor.”

“Apology accepted,” I said, standing up with the little Mink still clinging to my neck.

I offered Marigold a polite nod.

“Koala told me you guys would take care of them.

I’m trusting you to keep them safe.”

“On the honor of Amazon Lily, they will be raised as sisters,” Marigold promised solemnly.

The farewell was harder than I expected.

Gammamon finally burst out of his sandcastle, giving each of the girls a massive, sticky hug.

The girls clung to me, crying again, promising that they would grow up strong and brave.

“I know you will,” I smiled, ruffling the redhead’s hair.

“Look out for each other.”

I stood on the beach with Gammamon, watching the girls wave from the railing of the Kuja galleon as the massive Yuda serpents pulled the ship back into the impenetrable fog of the Calm Belt.

My transport mission was officially over.

I let out a long sigh, tapping the black disk on my hip.

“Alright, Gammamon,” I said as the Sky-Rift Roc materialized above us, its metallic feathers gleaming in the sun.

“Next stop, Reverse Mountain.

We have a sister to catch.”

(Jasmine’s POV)

Thousands of miles away, in the heart of the Grand Line, the Revolutionary Army’s forward base was currently undergoing some unauthorized landscaping.

“Commander Jasmine,” a rebel lieutenant asked, completely bewildered.

“What exactly are you doing?”

I wiped a streak of mud off my forehead with the back of my hand, adjusting the yellow construction hardhat resting on my head.

I leaned on my shovel, gesturing to the massive, six-foot-deep trench I had just excavated in a complete circle around my personal quarters.

“I am establishing a defensive perimeter, Lieutenant,” I said seriously.

“Against what?” the lieutenant asked, looking at the stacks of heavy sandbags I had piled up.

“The Marines don’t even know we’re on this island.”

“Against my big brother,” I replied grimly, stabbing the shovel back into the dirt.

“He’s coming.

And he knows about the bounty.”

The lieutenant blinked slowly.

“Commander…

you are the Thunder Maiden.

You literally blew up a Marine cruiser last week with a single lightning strike.

Why are you digging a moat?”

“You don’t understand!” I stressed, waving my arms frantically.

“You don’t know him!

He’s the most patient guy in the world, right up until he decides you’ve done something incredibly stupid!

Like, oh I don’t know, racking up a three-hundred-million Beri bounty!”

Palmon walked over, effortlessly carrying a dozen heavy sandbags in her vines, and dropped them next to the trench.

“Jasmine, I still think you’re overreacting,” Palmon reasoned cheerfully.

“He loves you.

When Koala told him you were safe, he cried.”

“Of course he loves me!

That’s the problem!” I panicked, pacing the length of my trench.

“He’s going to put me in a headlock, Palmon!

And according to Koala, he has a shadow-ferret!

A shadow-ferret!

I won’t even see the headlock coming!

It’ll just materialize out of the darkness and noogie me to death!”

I grabbed another sandbag, hoisting it onto the barricade.

“We need more barbed wire!

The Thunder Maiden will not be grounded!”

(Victor’s POV)

The weather had shifted drastically.

The sunny, peaceful skies of the South Blue had given way to ominous, churning black clouds.

The wind howled with a feral intensity, whipping the ocean into a frenzy of violent, frothing waves.

Sitting in the comfortable, insulated cabin of the Sky-Rift Roc’s carriage, I looked through the reinforced glass window.

Rising up ahead of us like a wall that touched the heavens was the Red Line.

And carved into its impossibly sheer face was the raging, upward-flowing river of Reverse Mountain.

The gateway to the Grand Line.

“It’s loud out there,” Gammamon observed, munching on a piece of dried meat.

“It’s the entrance to the greatest sea in the world,” I replied, feeling a surge of anticipation.

“Hold on tight.

We’re going over the mountain.”

But down below, amidst the churning, violent waves directly in front of the mountain’s current, a massive shadow blocked the path.

Anchored squarely in the treacherous waters, unfazed by the raging storm, was an enormous Marine Battleship.

The figurehead of the ship was shaped like a massive dog with a bone in its mouth.

Standing on the deck, letting the rain and sea spray wash over her pristine Marine coat, was Rear Admiral Hototogisu.

She held a den-den mushi receiver to her ear, looking incredibly stressed.

“Are you sure?” Hototogisu yelled over the wind into the receiver.

“He completely vanished from Centaurea?

The Royalists said the entire armory just disappeared into the sky?”

Beside her, completely ignoring the hurricane-force winds, sat a massive, broad-shouldered man with a greying beard and a prominent scar over his left eye.

He was wearing a ridiculously loud, tropical-patterned button-down shirt beneath his Vice Admiral coat, loudly crunching on a bag of rice crackers.

“Bwahahaha!” Vice Admiral Garp roared with laughter, tossing a handful of crackers into his mouth.

“A flying island ape!

A kid bagging high-level bounties with zero effort!

You weren’t lying about this kid, Hototogisu!

He sounds like a riot!”

“Sir, this isn’t a joke,” Hototogisu stressed, hanging up the receiver.

“The ‘Anomaly’ is highly dangerous.

He dismantled Cipher Pol on Baterilla without drawing a weapon.

And if the intelligence is correct, he’s heading for the Grand Line right now.”

Garp stood up, his massive frame towering over the Rear Admiral.

The jovial, relaxed demeanor vanished in an instant, replaced by an aura of sheer, crushing dominance that made the storm around them feel insignificant.

He cracked his knuckles, a terrifying, battle-hungry grin spreading across his face.

“I know,” Garp grinned, looking up toward the dark clouds above the mountain.

“I intercepted the reports.

A kid with the ‘D’ initial causing a ruckus in the South Blue with powers nobody’s ever seen before?

I couldn’t pass that up.”

Garp reached down to the deck, effortlessly lifting a massive, solid iron cannonball the size of a small house with one hand.

“If he wants to sail the Grand Line,” Garp boomed, his eyes locking onto the faint outline of a metallic bird descending through the clouds.

“He’s going to have to prove to me that he has the spine to survive it!”

Word Count: 2093

———————————————————————————————————

For more chapters

This month’s adventures wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of my patrons:

Greylocke33, Jordan D’souza, Big_Bro_Byakko, Doglore63

thank you for believing in the story!