The lab's corridors twisted like a serpent's gut, walls pulsating with the sickly glow of Sanguine Lily nectar. Dr. Visser stumbled ahead, her trembling fingers brushing pipes marked with peeling hazard symbols. "Left here!" she urged, voice fraying. "The service exit—"
A thunderous BOOM rocked the floor, sending vials of neon serum crashing from shelves. Bepo sneezed glittering pollen, fur bristling. "C-Captain, that was close!"
Law's Room flickered, blue light carving through the acrid smoke. "Keep moving."
Kuro adjusted his glasses, the Vivre card in his palm twitching like a dying moth. "She's near."
Ember giggled, her slingshot rifle Sugarfall aimed at a SAD pipeline. "Boom-boom shortcut?"
CRACK.
The explosion tore through the wall, spewing pink sludge and machinery shrapnel. Souta stepped over the wreckage, katana gleaming. "Messy. Inelegant."
"Effective," Kuro replied, kicking aside a twitching Gifter—deformed frogman.
Dr. Visser's "exit" led to a dead end—a cavernous reactor chamber, its ceiling strung with drip-fed nectar veins. Bram cursed, hefting a rusted crowbar. "Trapped."
"Not quite."
Kuro's voice slithered from the shadows. The assassins emerged: Ember perched on a fractured pipe, Souta flicking sludge off his coat, Kuro's Cat Claws glinting.
Marya's eyes narrowed. "You, again."
Law's grip tightened on his sheath. "Last time wasn't enough?"
Kuro smirked. "We're here for her. And…" His glasses flashed. "Collateral."
Ember giggled, aiming Sugarfall at Dr. Visser. "Boom the lab rat?"
"Wait—" Bram stepped forward, but Souta was already moving, his edge a silver blur aimed at his throat.
Law's Room flared. "Shambles!"
Bram swapped places with a SAD barrel. Souta's blade sheared through steel, nectar geysering.
"Predictable," Kuro sighed. "Weak links first. Cleaner that way."
The lab's corridors throbbed with the hum of overloaded reactors, neon sludge dripping from fractured pipes like luminous spit. Marya's fingers twitched—Mist-Mist: Shroud of the Vanished—and the air rippled, tendrils of fog coiling into a smokescreen reeked of metallic burnt sugar. Law's Room flared in tandem, blue light swallowing Bram and Dr. Visser mid-stumble, teleporting them past a collapsing support beam.
Bram spat blood, grip tightening on his crowbar. "Who the hell are they?!"
Law didn't answer, amber eyes locked on Marya. She tilted her head, mist swirling around her like a living cloak. "Law. You tell me why this place has you so… twitchy," she said, voice smooth as polished steel, "and I'll tell you about the three amigos."
A tattooed serpent—Souta's ink-made assassin—slithered from the ceiling, fangs bared. Marya spun, Eternal Eclipse slicing the construct into dissipating smoke. "Later," Law growled.
"You'll go first," she countered, stepping over the fading ink.
"Fine."
Bepo's nose twitched. "Scent changed! Left!"
Dr. Visser lunged toward a rusted maintenance hatch, her lab coat snagging on a SAD barrel. "Here! It's—"
KABOOM!
Ember's laughter echoed as the wall behind them disintegrated, pink sludge geysering. Kuro emerged through the debris, glasses cracked but grinning. "Running only delays the inevitable!"
Marya's mist thickened, tendrils snaking around Souta's ankles as he lunged. Law's fingers flicked—Tact—and the floor warped, sending the assassin crashing into a vat of bubbling nectar.
"Exit!" Dr. Visser screamed, wrenching the hatch open. Daylight—or what passed for it under Nieuw Bloemendaal's poison sky—filtered through.
Bram hauled her forward. "Move, doc!"
Marya lingered, mist dissolving to reveal Ember perched on a pipe, her slingshot rifle aimed. "Bye-bye, sword lady!"
Thwip.
Marya's blade deflected the pellet into a Gifter's maw—BOOM—splattering the corridor in fluorescent gore. "Cute aim," she remarked, vanishing into the mist.
Law followed, Kikoku sheathed but humming. "You owe me answers."
"You first," she said, voice fading as the hatch clanged shut.
The hatch clanged shut behind them, sealing away the lab's neon-lit bowels. Outside, the windmills groaned under the weight of the island's poisoned sky, their sails slicing through smog-thick air. The scent of salt and decay clung to everything—rotten lilies, rusted metal, the acrid tang of SAD residue seeping from Dr. Visser's trembling hands.
Bepo's ears twitched, nose wrinkling as he sniffed the air. "Where to, Captain?"
Bram wiped sweat and grime from his brow, panting. "Main hideout. Regroup."
Law didn't answer immediately. His amber eyes flicked back toward the lab, where muffled shouts and the sharp clang of metal on metal echoed through the vents. Kuro's voice, cold and calculating, cut through the chaos. "Find them."
Marya stood slightly apart, Eternal Eclipse resting against her shoulder, her expression unreadable. The void veins along her arms pulsed faintly, a reminder of the power coiled beneath her skin. She glanced at Law, waiting.
"Hideout," Law finally said, jaw tight. "Now."
With a flick of his fingers, his Room expanded—blue light swallowing them whole. The world twisted, reality bending as they vanished.
Kuro, Ember, and Souta burst from the lab's wreckage just in time to see the last flicker of Law's power dissipate. The air was thick with the smell of burnt sugar, the remnants of the Ope-Ope Fruit's signature displacement, glinting.
Ember's fingers twitched around Sugarfall, her pupils dilating as she rocked on her heels. "They poofed!" she whined, voice pitching high. "No fair!"
Souta adjusted his coat, brushing neon sludge from the fabric with a look of distaste. "Predictable."
Kuro's glasses glinted under the sickly glow of the windmills, his smirk sharpening. "They're messy."
Ember's breath hitched, her grip tightening on her slingshot rifle. "Boom?" she asked, tilting her head like a child begging for candy.
Kuro sighed, waving a hand. "Make it quick."
Ember's grin split her face. She pressed a palm to the lab's outer wall, her Bang-Bang Fruit's power surging through the structure like a lit fuse. "Boom-boom bye-bye!"
KABOOOOOM—
The explosion tore through the lab, fire and neon sludge geysering into the sky. The shockwave rattled the canals, sending ripples through the toxic water. Debris rained down, splashing into the muck as the windmills shuddered in protest.
Souta shielded his face from the heat, unimpressed. "Excessive."
Kuro adjusted his glasses, watching the flames lick at Doflamingo's smiling sigil painted on the lab's collapsing facade. "Effective."
Ember giggled, dancing through the falling embers, her dress fluttering like a deranged butterfly. "Pretty fireworks!"
Far away, atop a crumbling rooftop overlooking the burning ruin, Law and the others reappeared in a flash of blue. The explosion's glow painted their faces in flickering hues of pink and gold.
Bram cursed under his breath. "They just—"
"Yes," Law cut in, voice flat.
Marya watched the flames, her expression unreadable.
Bepo's ears drooped. "Do we... do we go back?"
Law turned away, Kikoku's hilt cold under his fingers. "No."
*****
The Paper Serpent cut through the neon-choked waters with predatory grace, its black sails swallowing what little light dared pierce Nieuw Bloemendaal's smog. Captain Umeko Ozias stood at the prow, static crackling between his jagged horns, the scent of smolder cutting through the cloying lily rot. Ahead, the Blood Dike loomed—a Frankenstein monstrosity of salvaged ship hulls and desperation, its patched seams weeping saltwater onto the battling figures below.
Jean Bart's roar echoed across the docks as he swung a deformed chicken-man by its feathered-coated tail, slamming it into three Overseers. "Ikkaku! Left flank!"
"Already on it!" She backflipped over a deformed hamster-man, wrench sparking as it connected with a Gifter's jaw. "Though I prefer right flanks!"
Uni ducked behind a shattered SAD barrel, scribbling calculations on his forearm. "If we redirect the canal flow at 32 degrees—"
"Less math!" Clione kicked a Bloom Token into an Overseer's mouth. "More stabbing!"
Then—impact.
The Paper Serpent struck the docks like a meteor, its black hull splintering wood and sending shockwaves through the neon-lit chaos. Before the debris had even settled, four figures descended upon the battlefield, each more devastating than the last.
Umeko Ozias landed first, his seven-foot frame shaking the ground. Twin Thunder maces, crackling with barely-contained static, cratered the stone beneath him. The air itself seemed to tremble as arcs of electricity spiderwebbed through the puddles of glowing sludge, turning them into deadly conductors. Overseers mid-charge suddenly convulsed, their black uniforms smoking as their teeth chattered violently. One collapsed into a twitching heap, his whip dissolving into ash in his paralyzed grip.
Amaru Valentine touched down with the grace of a dancer, his gaudy Hawaiian shirt fluttering despite the destruction around him. Lady Luck, his ornately engraved rifle, sang three sharp notes—crack-crack-crack—each shot precisely severing a weapon from a Heart Pirate's grasp without drawing blood. Shachi's daggers clattered to the ground, his arms stinging from the vibration. Amaru blew him a kiss, his grin all teeth. "Missed me~?"
Then came Akako Zinnia, a pink-and-black hurricane of destruction. She plummeted from the sky, her oversized hammer raised high. "SUPERNOVA SLAM!" The weapon connected with a SAD storage silo, the metal buckling like paper before detonating in a geyser of syrupy pink nectar. She emerged from the deluge seconds later, drenched in fluorescent sludge, her twin ponytails dripping. Miraculously, her Baretto plush—perched on her shoulder—remained pristine. She blinked at the destruction, then giggled. "Oopsie!"
Finally, Ozul Crow descended like a specter, his dark dreadlocks whipping around him as his katana Aetherius carved through the air. The blade left trails of shimmering light in its wake, forming intricate constellations that hung in the air for a split second before collapsing inward. Three Gifters—mid-leap—suddenly folded in on themselves, their bodies contorting into perfect origami puppets before fluttering uselessly to the ground. Ozul raised his chin, murmuring, "Mars demands sacrifice."
The battlefield, once a chaotic but even match, tilted in an instant. The Heart Pirates, already battered from their earlier skirmishes, found themselves suddenly outmatched.
Jean Bart roared, swinging his massive frame toward Umeko, but the Beast Pirate captain didn't even flinch. A single backhanded swing of Twin Thunder sent the first mate crashing into a pile of splintered crates, his vision swimming.
Ikkaku lunged at Akako, her wrench sparking, but the diminutive terror just giggled, sidestepping with impossible speed before bopping her on the head with Baretto. "Tag! You're it!"
Shachi and Penguin tried to flank Amaru, but the sniper twirled between them, Lady Luck's butt knocking one in the temple while his elbow caught the other in the gut. "Aw, teamwork! Cute!"
Ozul moved like a phantom, his blade turning the battlefield into a gallery of floating paper art—each stroke another Heart Pirate neutralized, another Gifter folded into submission.
Within minutes, it was over.
Jean Bart, Ikkaku, Shachi, and Penguin lay restrained, their weapons scattered around them. Uni, Clione, and Hakugan—seeing the tide turn—exchanged a single glance before bolting into the maze of neon alleys.
"RUN!" Jean Bart bellowed after them, his voice raw. "Find the Captain!"
Clione hesitated, staff trembling. Hakugan grabbed his collar. "Move!"
Uni's goggles reflected the carnage as they fled—Umeko methodically binding prisoners, Akako humming while sitting on Shachi's back, Ozul consulting a fortune cookie.
The last thing they heard was Amaru's laugh: "Tell Law we kept his crew warm~!"
Umeko watched them go, his expression unreadable. The static in his horns faded to a low hum.
Amaru blew a strand of hair from his face. "Well that was fun. Do we get a reward?"
Akako bounced on her toes. "Cake?"
Ozul cracked open a fortune cookie from somewhere inside his coat. "'Beware the surgeon's blade,'" he read aloud, then crushed it in his palm. "Hm."
Hakugan's blades cleared a path through the sludge-choked alleys. "Where's the Captain?!"
Uni adjusted his cracked goggles. "Windmill No. 4. Maybe."
Clione spat blood. "Then we—"
A distant BOOM cut him off. The windmill in question erupted, painting the sky in psychedelic fire.
All three froze.
"...Or," Uni squeaked, "we avoid that."
*****
The bamboo in Vergo's grip was smooth from years of use, its surface worn to a dull sheen by calloused fingers and the occasional crack of bone. He sat in the warship's dimly lit captain's cabin, the only light a flickering oil lamp that cast long, jagged shadows across his face. The scent of salt and iron clung to the air—old blood, fresh polish, and the ever-present tang of the sea.
Then, a shout from above.
"Land ho!"
Vergo's fingers stilled. Slowly, deliberately, he set the bamboo down on the desk, its weight a silent promise. Soon.
He rose, the floorboards groaning under his boots, and made his way to the deck.
Nieuw Bloemendaal rose from the horizon like a festering wound.
The island was a grotesque parody of its former self—windmills, once proud symbols of industry, now twisted into skeletal sentinels pumping neon-pink poison into the sky. Canals, once bustling with trade, oozed with glowing sludge, their surfaces reflecting the sickly light in rippling, hypnotic patterns. The air carried the scent of decaying charred sap, thick enough to coat the back of Vergo's throat.
He stood at the prow, hands clasped behind his back, his Marine coat flapping in the toxic breeze. His expression was as unreadable as ever—lips pressed into a thin line, eyes dark and depthless. But beneath the ironclad discipline, something stirred.
Anticipation.
The last time he'd faced Marya, it had been on Isla Koralia. The memory was a thorn in his side—Her smirk, the flash of her blade, the way she'd slipped through Vergo's grasp like smoke. A miscalculation. A weakness.
This time, there would be no mistakes.
And then there was him—Trafalgar Law—the defector. Betrayed by Donquixote Rosinante, brother to Donquixote Doflamingo and a spy for the Navy.
Doflamingo wanted them alive.
Vergo intended to deliver them broken.
The warship cut through the pink-tinged waves, its hull parting the sludge like an edge through flesh. Vergo's gaze never wavered from the island, his mind already mapping the battlefield.
Lab first. That's where the reports had placed Law.
Then the girl. She wouldn't be far.
Behind him, the crew moved in hushed silence, their footsteps muffled by the weight of his presence. No one spoke. No one dared.
A drop of neon rain struck the deck, sizzling where it landed. Vergo didn't flinch.
Somewhere on that rotting island, Law was waiting.
And Vergo?
He was done waiting.