The center tunnel swallowed them whole, deeper than the others, the air growing thick with a sickly-sweet stench that coated the tongue – decay and old dust with an underlying tang of rust and despair. Aurélie moved like a blade through smoke, her silver hair a faint glimmer in the gloom cast by Koala's lantern. Kuro followed, his polished boots crunching on unseen debris, face impassive behind his smudged spectacles. Souta was barely a whisper of shadow at his shoulder, while Koala's breath hitched slightly against the foul air.
The center tunnel swallowed them whole, deeper than the others, the air growing thick with a sickly-sweet stench that coated the tongue – decay and old dust with an underlying tang of rust and despair. Aurélie moved like a blade through smoke, her silver hair a faint glimmer in the gloom cast by Koala's lantern. Kuro followed, his polished boots crunching on unseen debris, face impassive behind his smudged spectacles. Souta was barely a whisper of shadow at his shoulder, while Koala's breath hitched slightly against the foul air.
They rounded a final bend, the tunnel opening abruptly into a vast, echoing cavern. The feeble lantern light stretched out, "Bianca!" Koala yelled, her voice echoing weirdly in the cavernous space. "Ember!"
Far below, near the base of a steep, smooth-sided chute slick with algae, Bianca Clark scrambled to her knees. Her overalls were smeared with grime and bone dust, her goggles askew. She gagged, clamping a hand over her nose and mouth. "Like... what the hell?!" she choked out, her voice muffled. She stared around, the horror dawning as her engineer's mind cataloged the sheer volume of remains. "Oh, seas... it's... it's all..." The floor wasn't stone – it was a shifting, treacherous sea of bones. Skulls grinned emptily up from tangles of femurs and ribs, bleached white and stained brown with time and damp, piled several feet deep. The reek was overwhelming, a physical weight pushing against them, smelling of forgotten graves and spoiled meat left in a damp cellar.
Above, at the rim of the pit, Ember peered down. Her head tilted, pink space buns bobbing. She watched Bianca floundering in the ossuary, her mismatched eyes wide. A small frown puckered her brow. "Cheater," she declared, her voice carrying clearly in the damp silence. "I hid first! Didn't find me! Not fair!" The echo of approaching footsteps grew louder behind her.
Ember's face scrunched up in mock outrage. "Well... I can play too!" she announced, a manic grin splitting her features. As Aurélie, Souta, Kuro, and Koala rounded the corner, Ember took a running leap. "Wheeeeeee!" she squealed, pure, terrifying joy in her voice as she launched herself down the slick chute, a blur of pink and black vanishing into the bone-filled gloom.
"No!" Koala gasped, lunging forward just in time to see Ember disappear.
Souta let out a low, exasperated groan. Aurélie's lips thinned to a razor line, a flicker of something dangerous in her steel-gray eyes.
Koala dropped to her knees at the edge, peering down into the shifting shadows. "Bianca! Ember! Are you hurt?!"
Below, Bianca had just managed to stand, brushing bone fragments from her overalls with trembling hands, when a squealing projectile shot out of the chute. Ember landed with a whump, skidding on the treacherous surface and bowling Bianca right back into the skeletal morass with a startled yelp. Ember popped up instantly, straddling the dazed engineer, clapping her hands.
"I GOT YOU!" Ember crowed, triumphant. She crossed her arms, sticking out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. "But you cheated! Hid before catchin' me! Bad player!"
Bianca groaned, spitting out bone dust. "Like... Ember, get off..." she wheezed, pushing at the smaller girl. "This isn't a game!"
"Bianca! Ember! Status!" Koala's voice echoed down again, tight with concern.
"We're here!" Bianca called back, shoving Ember aside and scrambling back to her feet. She looked around desperately, the sheer scale of the bone pit hitting her anew. "We're okay! Mostly! But... like, I have no clue how to get out of here!" She gestured helplessly at the steep, smooth walls slick with moisture and algae. "It's all... bones. Like, so many bones." The scent of old death clung to her clothes.
Ember, instantly bored with Bianca, hopped off and began poking at a nearby skull with her boot. "Ooh, crunchy," she murmured.
Aurélie's voice, cool and sharp, cut through. "Can you climb back up the chute?"
Bianca eyed the steep, slippery incline. "Like, no way! It's too steep and slimy! We slid down way too fast!" She spotted Ember wandering towards a darker recess, humming tunelessly. "Ember! No! Stay here!
But Ember, drawn by some unseen curiosity or the whisper of Josiah only she could hear, skipped further into the cavern, her giggles bouncing off the walls of bone. "Found a secret path! Bet it leads to cookies!"
"Ember! Like, STOP!" Bianca yelled, taking off after her, her boots crunching sickeningly on the remains.
"Bianca! Report!" Aurélie called again, her voice edged with frustration now. Only silence answered from below.
Kuro adjusted his glasses, the gold chain glinting. "This is pointless," he stated, his voice smooth and dismissive. "Standing here accomplishes nothing. They are resourceful, or they are not. We have our own objective." He turned as if to leave.
Aurélie's head snapped towards him, her posture radiating icy fury. "We do not abandon allies."
Kuro met her glare with a bored expression. "Unless you plan on developing the ability to fly down there or yell them a ladder into existence, Miss Nakano, our options are limited. Is shouting into a hole your preferred strategy? It seems... ineffective." His tone was deliberately provoking.
Koala stood up, brushing grit from her knees, her practical nature reasserting itself despite the horror below. "He's got a point, Aurélie," she said, though her voice held no agreement with Kuro's callousness. "But we're not abandoning them. The Revolutionaries mapped parts of these service tunnels decades ago. Crude schematics, mostly, hidden in our archives here. There might be another access point, a drainage route, something marked." She looked back towards the tunnel they'd come from. "Sabo needs the intel on the bridge mechanism anyway. We head back, get the maps, and find a way in."
Aurélie held Kuro's gaze for a long, tense moment. The reek of the pit rose between them, a grim reminder of what Bianca and Ember were trapped in. Finally, with visible reluctance, she gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. Her hand rested briefly on the hilt of Anathema. "Very well," she stated, her voice cold steel. "But we return swiftly. That pit... it is not a place to linger." She cast one last look down into the bone-choked darkness where the sounds of Bianca's frantic calls for Ember were fading, swallowed by the enormity of the dead and the living girl dancing among them. Kuro simply turned and led the way back, Souta a silent wraith beside him, leaving the echo of crunching bones and childish giggles behind.
*****
The air over Grove 1 tasted like burnt sugar and despair. Below, Sabaody Archipelago burned in slow motion. Not with fire, but with creeping, viscous horror. Makeshift medical tents overflowed, their white canvas stained rust-brown with blood and that unnatural, sticky substance leaking from the mangroves. Moans rose from the cots – not just of pain, but of something hollow, vacant. Nurses in torn uniforms moved like ghosts, eyes wide with exhaustion as they tied down thrashing patients whose veins pulsed with amber light. Outside the tents, chaos reigned. Civilians sprinted, tripping over roots slick with yellow ooze, pursued by figures moving with jerky, unnatural persistence. Their eyes glowed the same sickly amber as the resin seeping from the trees, mouths slack, fingers clawing mindlessly. These weren't pirates or revolutionaries; they were shopkeepers, tourists, dockworkers – transformed into shambling, single-minded hunters.
High above the carnage, the rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of massive wings cut through the cacophony. Captain Nuri Evander, in his Arambourgiania form – leathery wings spanning thirty feet, sharp beak snapping with nervous energy – banked sharply. "Captain Sullivan!" he yelled over the wind, his voice strained. "Sector Gamma-Three! Twenty civilians cornered near the collapsed bubble shop! Hostiles advancing in a... a pincer formation reminiscent of Cretaceous predator pack tactics!" He fidgeted with the steel bat clutched in one talones, its engraved "MVP" glinting dully.
Perched precariously on Nuri's broad, scaled back, Captain Kai Sullivan adjusted his glasses with a sharp push of his middle finger. Below, the blank-eyed figures shuffled relentlessly. His custom sniper rifle, Silent Requiem, was braced against his shoulder. He hummed a frantic, off-key snippet of Vivaldi, his dark eyes scanning the scene through the scope. "Wind shear negligible... range four hundred meters... trajectory calculated," he muttered, the melody warping with tension. He squeezed the trigger.
CRACK!
A high-velocity round tore through the knee of a resin-smeared woman lunging at a cowering child. She crumpled, a puppet with cut strings. For a heartbeat, relief washed over the child's face. Then, the horror deepened. The woman didn't scream. Didn't bleed normally. A thick, amber sludge oozed from the wound. Ignoring the shattered joint, she began dragging herself forward, inch by terrible inch, her glowing eyes fixed on the child, a low gurgle escaping her throat. Others simply stepped over her, their advance unbroken.
"They're... getting back up, Captain Evander," Kai reported, his voice tight, the humming stopped. He quickly chambered another round, his knuckles white on the rifle stock. "Standard incapacitation ineffective. Vital signs... readings are chaotic. It's like the resin is overriding basic biological shutdown protocols." He sighted another target – a burly man swinging a pipe wildly at the trapped group. CRACK! The pipe clattered to the ground as the man's shoulder erupted. He staggered, looked down at the oozing wound, then raised his other fist, still stumbling forward. Kai swallowed hard, a cold sweat beading on his forehead despite the altitude. "Containment failing. Sector Gamma-Three requires immediate ground intervention!"
On the bridge of the Leviathan's Judgement, Vice Admiral Venus Harlow stood ramrod straight before the panoramic viewport, but her immaculate facade was cracking. The scene below was a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life. Smoke from small fires mingled with the ever-present steam rising from the tainted mangroves. She took a long, deliberate drag from her cigar, the ember flaring brightly in the dimmed command center, then exhaled a slow, perfect smoke ring that drifted towards the ceiling. Her scarred cheek twitched. Her fingers, adorned with a single, heavy onyx ring, unconsciously tugged at the crisp cuff of her white trench coat.
"Status, Sentomaru!" Her voice crackled over the ship's comm, sharp as a whip, cutting through the tense silence on the bridge. Subordinates flinched, eyes glued to their flickering monitors.
The reply from the control room buried deep within Marineford's Sabaody outpost was laced with static and frustration. "Vice Admiral! Visual feeds from Groves 4 through 7 are down. Comms with Rayleigh and the infiltration team are completely severed. Sensors are picking up massive energy fluctuations deep below, but the source is masked by... by all that damned resin interference!"
Harlow's knuckles turned white where she gripped the railing. She adjusted her collar with a sharp, irritated jerk. "Damn pirates," she hissed, the words tasting like ash. "Knew letting them past the cordon was a mistake. Sentomaru, report: Is the perimeter holding? Is the spread contained?"
"Surface spread is... slowed in Groves 1-3, Vice Admiral, thanks to Captain Evander's aerial recon and Captain Sullivan's fire support," Sentomaru's voice came back, strained. "But containment is fragile. The infected are becoming more aggressive, less responsive to non-lethal force. And the tremors..." A low rumble, felt even through the massive hull of the Leviathan's Judgement, underscored his words. "...they're getting worse. More frequent. Stronger. Feels like the whole Archipelago is groaning."
Harlow's amber eyes hardened. The cigar was forgotten, smoldering dangerously close to her immaculate sleeve. The image of Aric Thorne's lifeless eyes flashed unbidden in her mind – another failure, another comrade lost because she hadn't acted decisively enough. The guilt was a familiar, acidic burn in her gut. She couldn't hesitate. Not again. Not with the entire archipelago, her command, at stake.
"Sentomaru," her voice dropped, cold and absolute, cutting through the static. "Deploy the Pacifista Units. Authorization Code Harlow-Zero-Niner. Full pacification protocol. Designate all infected hostiles as primary targets. Containment is now secondary. Eliminate the threat."
A beat of stunned silence crackled over the line. Then, protest. "Vice Admiral! The collateral damage... the civilians still trapped... the World Government observers—"
Harlow slammed her fist onto the comm panel, making the speaker crackle. Her customized prosthetic leg whirred faintly as she shifted her weight. "THAT IS A DIRECT ORDER, SENTOMARU!" Her roar filled the bridge, making junior officers recoil. "Deploy. Them. NOW! Or I'll find someone who understands the chain of command!"
A heavy sigh, thick with resignation, came through the speaker. "...Understood, Vice Admiral. Authorization confirmed. Deploying Pacifista Units."
Deep within the heavily fortified Marine storage facility beneath Grove 2, Sentomaru slammed his meaty fist onto the control console in frustration, cracking the screen. He glared at the distorted image of Harlow on the main monitor before switching channels. "All units, this is Sentomaru," he growled into the mic, his voice echoing in the cavernous, steel-lined chamber. "Pacifista deployment authorized. Code Red. Primary targets: Empty-eyed hostiles. Execute Pacification Protocol Sigma."
He stabbed a sequence of buttons with thick fingers. Deep within the facility, heavy mechanical locks disengaged with echoing clangs. Banks of harsh white lights flickered on, illuminating rows upon rows of towering, silent figures. Each stood over ten feet tall, their bodies gleaming alloys of brass and steel, faces expressionless plates modeled after a certain infamous Warlord.
One by one, pairs of glowing red optical sensors ignited in the gloom, casting long, predatory shadows on the walls. A low, synchronized hum filled the chamber, vibrating the metal floor plates. With a grinding whine of servos and hydraulics, the first unit stepped forward. Then another. Then a dozen. Then fifty. They moved with unnerving, synchronized purpose, their heavy footfalls shaking dust from the ceiling as they marched towards the sealed blast doors leading to the surface chaos. Their weapon ports hummed, priming. The cold, mechanical gaze of the Pacifista army turned towards the nightmare unfolding above.
*****
The utter nothingness didn't recede; it shattered. Like a pane of black glass struck by a hammer, the void fractured into a thousand dissolving shards of obsidian, replaced not with the lab's nightmarish red gloom, but with blinding, humid sunlight and the deafening chorus of unseen life.
Marya gasped, a ragged, involuntary intake of breath that tasted of salt, damp earth, and the sweet rot of jungle vegetation. Her boots, still damp with lab filth, sank slightly into soft, moss-covered ground. The cold steel weight of Eternal Eclipse was solid in her grip, its presence a grounding shock after the formless void. She stood rooted, every sense overwhelmed.
The Grove: Towering mangroves, ancient sentinels with serpentine roots plunging into brackish water, formed a dense, whispering wall around a small, sun-drenched island clearing. The air hung thick and warm, buzzing with insects and thick with the perfume of unfamiliar, waxy blossoms. Sunlight dappled through the dense canopy far overhead, painting shifting patterns on the vibrant ferns and mosses carpeting the ground. The dominant feature, however, was the tree. A colossal redwood, wider than a battleship at its base, its bark a tapestry of deep russet grooves and silvery scars, soared impossibly high, vanishing into the green canopy. Winding around its massive trunk, hugging it like a lover, was a wooden staircase. It spiraled upwards, weathered and sturdy, leading to a railed balcony high above. Set into the trunk itself at the balcony level was a wide, arched door crafted of dark, polished wood.
A low, rich chuckle, like stones tumbling in a gentle stream, drifted down. Marya's head snapped up, golden eyes scanning the balcony. Leaning casually on the railing, looking down at her with an expression of amused curiosity, was a woman.
She appeared aged, her dark skin etched with the map of a long life, yet her posture radiated a vibrant energy. A magnificent cloud of hair, a full Afro streaked dramatically with silver like storm clouds shot through with moonlight, framed a face with round, knowing eyes the color of dark amber. She wore a riot of colors: a loose, patterned blouse in vibrant blues and greens, a long, flowing maxi skirt in earthy reds and ochres, and open-toed sandals. Gaudy beaded necklaces in geometric patterns clicked softly against each other as she moved, and large, carved wooden earrings brushed her shoulders. She looked like a fragment of a vibrant, earthy festival displaced into this serene grove.
"Not often I get visitors," the woman called down, her voice warm, melodic, and carrying an undercurrent of immense age. "Especially ones who arrive... abruptly."
Marya remained statue-still, her knuckles white on Eternal Eclipse's hilt. The sudden shift from suffocating void to vibrant jungle, from brutal combat to this unnerving serenity, set every nerve on edge. She scanned the grove – the mangroves, the water glinting between roots, the sheer impossibility of this place existing beneath the sea near Sabaody. Her gaze snapped back to the woman. "Where exactly am I?" she demanded, her voice tight, cutting through the jungle hum. "And how…?"
The woman chuckled again, the sound rich and unsettling in the quiet grove. "Questions, questions. Heavy things, carried far. Why don't you come up?" She gestured towards the staircase with a bejeweled hand. "For a spot of tea. Easier to talk without shouting at the sky, yes?"
Marya opened her mouth, a sharp retort forming – something about monstrous serpents, flooding labs, and having no time for tea parties. But the words never left her lips.
The world shifted. Not a movement, not a blur. One instant, she was standing ankle-deep in moss, looking up at the impossibly high balcony. The next instant, she was inside.
The transition was so seamless it stole her breath. She stood on polished, dark wood floorboards. Warm, golden light spilled from windows woven into the living wood walls. The air smelled of cedar, dried herbs, and the faint, comforting aroma of brewing leaves. Rustic yet elegant furniture – a sturdy table, deeply carved chairs with woven rush seats – filled the space. The wide, arched door she'd seen from below stood open nearby, leading onto the balcony and offering a breathtaking, dizzying view of the mangrove canopy stretching like an endless green sea below. Sunlight streamed in, painting warm rectangles on the floor.
The Afro-Brazilian woman was already there, walking calmly towards the table carrying a simple wooden tray. On it rested a rounded clay teapot, steaming gently, and two earthenware cups. She moved with a serene, unhurried grace that contrasted violently with the frantic energy Marya still felt humming in her own veins.
"Come, sit," the woman said, her voice now intimate in the enclosed space. She placed the tray on the table with a soft thud. Her amber eyes flicked to the obsidian blade still gripped tightly in Marya's hand. "There's a place at the table for your sword too, child. No need to clutch it like a lifeline here." She winked, the beads in her hair clicking softly.
Marya's brow furrowed deeply. This casual dismissal of her weapon, this impossible transition, this woman's unsettling calm – it screamed danger wrapped in hospitality. Yet, the sheer power displayed in bringing her here… resistance felt futile. And a part of her, the part inherited from her mother that thirsted for understanding the world's hidden truths, was fiercely curious.
With a slow, deliberate motion that screamed reluctance, Marya stepped forward. She didn't sheath Eternal Eclipse, but she did lower it slightly, her eyes never leaving the woman. She pulled out the offered chair – solid, heavy wood – and sat, perching on the edge rather than relaxing. She placed the sword across her knees, the cold obsidian a stark contrast to the warm wood.
The woman smiled, a genuine curve of her lips that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She picked up the teapot, the steam curling around her bejeweled fingers. "Ah, see? Isn't that better?" She poured the hot water into the cups. It wasn't clear water; it held a deep, reddish-brown hue, releasing a complex scent – earthy, slightly smoky, with a hint of something floral Marya couldn't name. The woman sat across from her, settling into her chair with a sigh of contentment. She pushed one cup towards Marya. "It will get cold if you stand on ceremony too long, child. And cold tea is a sad thing."
Marya stared at the steaming cup, then back at the woman's expectant, ancient eyes. The absurdity of sipping tea while Rayleigh and the others might be drowning, while a corrupted ancient entity bled in a flooded lab, was almost laughable. Almost. With a sigh that was more a release of pent-up tension than surrender, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the warm earthenware cup. The heat seeped into her skin, strangely grounding.
The woman took a slow sip from her own cup, her gaze thoughtful, appraising Marya over the rim. The beads in her hair caught the sunlight. Then she spoke, her voice dropping to a lower register, rich with layers of unspoken knowledge.
"So, Marya Zaleska," she began, her amber eyes holding Marya's golden ones with unnerving directness. "Tell me. How fares your quest? The one that burns in your blood, tied to your mother's silenced song?"