It was the middle of the night, when Aden woke up. The moon was high in the sky, meaning it was midnight. Or close to it.
As he lay there, staring at the stars, he heard footsteps approaching.
"That was a good fight, kid. Give it a year and you'll actually give me trouble." Shanks said as he held a bottle towards Aden.
"Yeah... That actually means a lot coming from you." Aden replied, sitting up and taking the bottle. He took a swig, and sighed at the taste. That was some good stuff. Probably plundered from some stuck-up noble.
"You'll be leaving right away, right?" Shanks asked, but already knew the answer.
"Yep. Gotta return to my crew. I've been away long enough." Aden said, as he stood up and stretched, getting ready to leave.
"Wait! Before you go. Take this." Shanks stopped him, handing him a piece of paper.
Aden, recognizing a Vivre Card, took a tiny pencil from a pouch at his belt, put Shanks's name on it, and put it into the pouch together with the pencil.
Nodding at each other in farewell, and mutual respect established since yesterday, Aden walked a bit down the beach.
At the last step, lightning sparked around Aden, and with a clap of thunder, he was gone.
"Hehehe....ohhhh he will become such a monster." Shanks laughed to himself under the stars, choosing to simply lay down and sleep on the beach.
.
It has been a day since Aden left Shanks. Now the sun was high in the sky, marking noon.
"FILTHY PIRATES!!! YOU SHALL FACE JUSTICE!!!" shouted a commanding voice from the leading ship among ten others, who were chasing Vanguard.
Buggy was busy deflecting cannon fire and Robin was using her powers to grow extra limbs on the enemy ships to sow chaos. At one point she summoned two giant arms and literally crushes two ships, making the total count of enemy ships nine.
Nojiko was steering the ship, but there was a couple of flying monsters the size of a normal human, weaving between the marine ship and making it harder for the marines to aim. And the sharp loud screeching they occasionaly made was not doing the marines any favours either.
High above, floating in the air was Aden. For the last few minutes he was silently observing his crewmates. He noted, they became much stronger on the week or so of his absence.
Buggy was practically catching the cannon balls, and tossing them on a pile, for their own use later. Smart.
Nojiko was practicaly an illusion master at this point. He believed that in time her illusions will become so real, they will actually hurt people.
Robin with her Devil Fruit was breaking necks of the marines, and Aden even saw a few slit throats or eviscerated bodies. Apparently she used their own swords against them. A bloody carnage, yes. But to Aden, the precision of the kills was strangely beautiful.
"Or it's because of who made those kills.... Eh?...Where did that come from?..." Aden thought to himself, as he saw Robin slit a throat of another marine, by growing two arms on his shoulders, drawing his sword and slashing faster than he could react.
"Ohhh she definitely did assassination work before." Aden mutterer to himself.
He saw the marines gaining on Vanguard, simply because they had better ships with bigger sails. And so he chose that time to intervene.
Flying right above the marines, he let the gravity take hold, while he compressed as much air as possible around himself.
By the time the marines noticed him, it was too late.
As he hit the water and went deeper, he began to propel himself in a counter-clockwise direction, going outward in a spiral, until encircling the marine ships.
He was exploding the compressed air behind him in a wide cone, and pulling it back towards himself in rapid succession. This caused huge amounts of water to be dragged behind him.
As he did that, up above, the sea began to churn and spin. The moment Aden began his spiral, a whirlpool began to form. It grew and grew until all marine ships were caught in it.
And no matter how hard they tried, the whirlpool did not let them escape.
"What the hell is going on!?" shouted ome of the marine captains into a Transponder Snail.
"I saw a man covered in wind fall into the water just before this started!" another one responded with a shout, trying to be heard over the loud, wild water.
"Four-Winds?! But we got reports of him being in Water-7 yesterday. There is no way he got back here so fast." the captain shouted in disbelief.
As the arguments went on, while doing their best to stay afloat, down below, Aden was busy.
He realized a limit to his elemental abilities. He tried to absorb ice he created, but only got an extremely cold air out of it.
"So i can still create ice by manipulating moisture and cooling it down, and absorb the cold air making it easier to create ice, but not absorb the ice itself. Good to know. Seems only intangible elements can be absorbed. And i have just one or two "slots" left. This will be interesting." Aden thought to himself, after absorbing the freezing air.
He then began to freeze the water around him, and slowly made his way back to the center of the whirlpool, leaving ice trails behind. These ice trails spread on their own, freezing the water and trapping the marine ships in place.
As Aden got to the center, he flew out of the water, dragging a bit of it with him. That water froze instantly, creating an ice spire, on top of which he stood.
Looking around he saw the frozen whirlpool with the trapped ships scattered around. Some of the ships had ice spikes going through them, others were easily crushed by sheets of ice and the rest was simply frozen in place. The entire view reminiscent of an ice bowl.
After taking in the view, Aden turned into wind and headed to his crew without saying a word.
"Captain! Captain! Are you okay?" a marine shook his captain, who was stood frozen. Not by the ice, but by the sheer terror of what he saw.
At that moment, he realized what kind of monster Aden was.
"A calamity...." the captain whispered.
"What?..."
"He is a walking, natural Calamity...." the captain's voice and hands shook, as he took out a Transponder Snail.
.
"Was that...?" Nojiko asked from the wheel.
"You bet. This is exactly his style." Buggy laughed.
"Quite impressive, i must say." Robin admitted.
"Thank you, thank you. I accept tips and i shall be handing out autographs later." Aden said in a jovial tone as he appeared on the deck of the Vanguard.
"Greaat...More boost to his ego..As if he needs that." Nojiko sighed to herself.
"So how did it go, Captain? Talk to rubber-boy?" Buggy asked as he came closer.
"Yep. Also delivered your message, Nojiko. Nami just wanted me to tell you she's fine, and that she misses you." Aden said, turning to Nojiko.
"Thank you, Aden. That actually makes me feel better."
"Nice work with the marines, guys. And Robin, i must say, there is something strangely artistic about the way you kill people. Previous working experience?" Aden complimented his crew, and then turned towards their resident doctor with a grin
"Yes." Robin replied simply, took a seat and began to read the book. The marines interrupted her reading time, so she was a bit angry.
"Gonna elaborate?" Buggy poked.
"No" came a short response.
"Fair enough." said their captain as he went to Buggy to ask him about something.
He asked him about his progress. How his powers develop and some other stuff.
As their conversation ended, and after speaking with others for a couple hours, Aden went to sleep.
.
In his dreams, Aden found himself standing on a destroyed island. The sea was violent, lightning illuminated the sky. And kneeling in front of him was a beaten figure shrouded in shadow. The figure then spoke in a voice as if heard through water. Impossible to tell if it was a male or a female voice. Old or young.
="Aden...You may have bested me, but i still won. After decades, your terror on the seas is over...And I, am the one to end you. You cannot ...stop it now... I have used every last shred... of power left in my veins....to undo everything you are...everything you did...all that you caused will be undone. Because of what you did...this world..will quite literally restart..and should you somehow...remember...all knowledge...will disappear... Maybe ..you will be a decent person this time around... "= the voice finished speaking, the last words being swept away as if by being forgotten as they were heard.
(Another one is here. We are at the stage of no return. My brain went full madness mode. This is gonna be fun. I think. Hope you enjoyed.)