A Harbor Too Helpful
Gildveil pretended not to be a trap in the same way a cat pretends not to be watching the bird.
From the bridge of the Heaven's Embrace, the New World port had everything a tired crew would want—mirror-calm water, lanterns hung like friendly stars, harbormasters waving both hands, and a banner strung across the quay that read in cheerful paint: WELCOME, TRAVELERS. HAPPY HOUR.
Bell-mère smoked the banner for a long beat. "Neon sign that says please rob me," she judged, flicking ash.
Lilith's lenses slid down her nose. "Dead giveaways: new copper on the signal towers, Den Den sniffers disguised as gull roosts, and someone paid to polish the cobbles five minutes before we arrived. Also the gulls are drones."
A gull looked offended and blinked a red LED.
Nami's quill tapped her teeth. "Roger's list says the tavern's called The Lantern Ledger." She pointed at a narrow building with green shutters and a chalkboard in front that already had WELCOME, EMBRACE scrawled upon it in a hand that thought it was casual.
"Subtle," Nojiko said dryly.
Robin's eyes traced the rooflines. "Sentries on three roofs. Two look like locals. One moves like CP0 in civvies."
Vegito rested his palm on the figurehead. The ship hummed back: I see it too. "Okay," he said, tail making an amused question mark. "We'll let them spring it. But we choose the punchline."
"Decoy?" Lilith asked, the word already smiling.
"Decoy," Vegito confirmed.
Lilith vanished below and returned with two bottles in a padded tray: Roger's real bottle, glass glinting with that impossible weight, and a twin so perfect even Nami whistled. "Cloud-glass, printed from a resonance scan," Lilith said, pleased. "And six surprises inside."
"Six?" Carrot repeated, ears up.
"Pranks are best in layers," Lilith said. "Ask any onion."
The Lantern Ledger
The tavern was narrow, tall, warm—the sort of place where bar-top gossip could reach the attic and become a ghost's bedtime story in one night. Shelves crowded with bottles-—some labeled, some coy. Behind the bar, a man with a bookkeeper's shoulders and a pirate's grin wiped a glass he didn't need to.
"You must be the Sky lot," he said. "Table there, taps there, tabs… later." He nodded at the bottle case in Vegito's hands with too much interest for a normal bartender. "Special occasion?"
Vegito set the decoy on the back shelf where Roger's list said it ought to go. "Pilgrimage," he said, easy. "We buy a round, we tell a story, we move on lighter."
The barkeep's smile shaved a shade thinner.
"Round for the house!" Nami called, coin purse in hand. The room lifted the way rooms do when free becomes a verb. Tankards lined. The first foam crested. Laughter did what laughter does best—spread.
Robin slipped the duplicate list to the barkeep, tracing the scrawl. "Roger's handwriting is terrible."
He took it like a relic and like evidence both.
Stories grew: dockworkers slipping pride into tall tales; an old woman recounting a storm in '32 that bent ships but not spines; Bell-mère's two-sentence sermon about eat before you fight that had the tavern nodding like a church.
Then the surprise arrived.
Not a door-kick. Not a shout.
A breeze—too cool for the packed room—coming from nowhere. Lantern flames leaned. On the shelf behind the bar, the decoy bottle twitched, rolled an inch, and slid into a hidden slot with a soft snick behind the display.
The barkeep didn't see it because he was very carefully not turning around. Two men at the back table didn't see it because they only saw it—eyes fixed on a mirror in a cufflink. Upstairs, someone whispered, "Hook's in."
Kalifa's eyebrow rose a millimeter. "Rude."
Wanda's ears tipped back. "They think we didn't see?"
"We saw," Bell-mère murmured. "Let's let them learn."
Vegito raised his mug as if nothing at all had happened. "To ordinary nights done right," he said, and the room cheered, and the trap's watchers relaxed just enough to believe they were brilliant.
The Snatch
Two minutes later, the barkeep excused himself, slipped through a half-door, and into a corridor where the smell of old wood gave way to oil and machine. He followed it to a closet with too much lock on it, opened it with the key word in the back of his throat, and stared down at a snug little contraption: steel belly, sea-stone ribs, and a glass cradle that now held a bottle he thought was worth continents.
He touched the lever like he was petting a cat. Snap. The cradle sealed. The floor under it sighed and began to slide.
Upstairs, three nice, forgettable patrons stood and stretched and drifted toward each exit with the casual synchronicity of people who spend a lot of time practicing looking like accidents. On the roof, a Den Den Mushi clicked its little teeth and sent a packet down a wire to a listening ear in a building with no windows across the street. That ear wore a white mask.
The bottle rode a dumbwaiter down past a second door, which harbored a second listener with a book open to a blank page and a pen poised on a nothing line. His mask didn't have to look smug. Smug was a posture.
The cradle stopped in a room tiled in nice white that would be very easy to clean. A Vice Admiral without a coat sat on a stool polishing a ring. The CP0 leader beside him adjusted the depth of his arrogance.
"Open it," the Vice Admiral said.
The CP0 agent flipped a catch, lifted the cradle's lid, and reached for the bottle with a hand that had closed on secrets all his life.
His glove squeaked. The bottle was slightly… tacky.
"What is—" he began.
The bottle laughed at him.
Not a ha-ha. A chime that bounced off the tile and slipped past his mask like a fish. The laugh found the Den Den Mushi on the wall and tickled it. The snail, long-suffering, began to broadcast—not images, not audio, but a receipt.
Upstairs, in the tavern, every till rang and spat out paid slips: ROUND BOUGHT FOR YOU BY: WORLD GOVERNMENT. A little heart after it, because Lilith couldn't help herself. On the quay, money-chit cards in people's pockets vibrated and displayed a sudden credit equal to exactly one drink, sometimes two if they'd had a bad week. Across the district, chalkboards changed their specials to FREE FIRST ROUND (THANKS, CP0).
The Vice Admiral stared at the blank page in the recorder's book as it filled itself with big cheerful letters: HI.
He looked at the bottle. It wasn't tacky anymore. It was singing, very quietly, in Joy Boy's key.
The CP0 agent looked down at his hands as his mask began to develop whiskers. Not painted. Grown—lil' pom pom flourishes sprouting like truth. He pulled at them; they squeaked. The Vice Admiral's hat unfurled into a paper crown with be nice printed around the rim in six languages.
Upstairs, Vegito set down his mug. "Shall we go say hello?" he asked.
"Please," Robin said, absolutely deadpan.
Down Two Flights and a Joke
They didn't storm. They ambled. Kalifa blew a bubble; it rolled along the stair banister like a scout and popped gently against the thin seam of a hidden door. Robin sprouted a hand out of the wall and flicked the latch. Bell-mère kept the rifle angled at the floor with the casual menace of a mother with a sandal.
The pretty tile room received them like long-expected weather. The Vice Admiral stood; his paper crown tried so hard. CP0's whiskers shivered in confused dignity. A second masked operative in the corner was trying not to sneeze because every time he did his shoes made a party horn sound.
Vegito looked at the bottle in the cradle, cocked his head, and smiled. "Fun, right?"
The Vice Admiral's jaw worked through three strategies and landed on honesty by accident. "You… funded free drinks for an entire district with our seizure account."
Nami folded her arms, serene. "Reallocated."
"We traced your tether," Lilith said cheerfully. "Great engineering. Good throughput. Terrible password hygiene."
The CP0 leader managed to find his voice. "You cannot—"
"What?" Reiju asked, sweet as poison. "Make you buy a round? Roger asked nicely."
"We will arrest—"
Kuina tapped the tip of her sheathed sword against the floor once. The sound was small and extremely persuasive. "No."
The Vice Admiral sagged onto his stool, paper crown hanging brave. "I had… orders to retrieve any artifact connected to the Pirate King and publicly destroy it."
"You tried to steal a bottle?" Nojiko asked. "On brand."
The agent's whiskers drooped. "We were instructed to… to ruin the bit."
There was a silence for that. Even the bottle did not deign to hum.
Vegito reached into the cradle and picked the decoy up. It chimed once, then stopped; prank satisfied. He set it on the tiles between them and nudged it toward the Vice Admiral with his foot.
"You want a better order?" he asked.
The man looked at him like he'd been handed a map out of a maze he'd been born in. "I can't follow your orders."
"Not mine," Vegito said. He tapped the crown brim so it sat straight. "His." He jerked his chin toward the ceiling, toward the upstairs where the tavern was loud with thank you and tell me and I remember.
"You'll get written up," Bell-mère warned. "But you'll have a story that's worth something."
The Vice Admiral held the bottle's gaze like that was a normal thing to do and nodded once.
CP0 tried to be a threat again, and Kalifa put him gently into a bubble. He floated to the ceiling, whiskers akimbo, dignity circling like a kite with a cut string.
"Let the tavern keep this one," Vegito said, patting the decoy. "It sings when thieves touch it. It laughs when cowards do. It funds a round when bullies get near. Consider it… an upgrade."
"And the real bottle?" the Vice Admiral asked, trying not to look directly at Vegito's tail, which had chosen this moment to flip like a metronome of mischief.
Vegito's grin answered for him.
Reveal and Return
Back upstairs, the Lantern Ledger had become a festival. Merchants from the next street over arrived clutching their CP0-paid credits and wearing expressions that hovered between delight and terror at the audacity of it. Someone started a song about bureaucrats who bought beer by accident; it scanned remarkably well.
Vegito climbed onto a chair (the chair survived) and cleared his throat. "Confession," he said. "That bottle they tried to lift? That was the practice bottle."
He reached into nothing the way only he and very old ships could and pulled Roger's real bottle from the Realm with the casual triumph of a magician producing a rabbit who'd had a good nap.
The room ooohed. The barkeep forgot to look like a collaborator and looked like a kid. Vegito set the real bottle on the shelf, gently, like you tuck in a sleeping friend.
"This is the pilgrimage," he said. "We don't break the bit. We leave it here awhile so you can tell your friends you saw it. Then we take it to the next bar, and the next, until the world's gotten twelve chances to practice being on the same page."
He gestured to the barkeep. "Pour."
They poured. They didn't open the bottle—that wasn't for today. They poured normal drinks and did the most abnormal thing in the world: listened to each other.
A gray-haired dockmother told a story about being eighteen and stealing a kiss off a Marine recruit in the rain because the war hadn't taught them yet that they weren't supposed to be people. A kid explained with furious sincerity that her sea snail was faster than everyone else's and could beat a Battleship if given a head start and respect and snacks. A quiet man in a coat told a short story about a son who'd chosen the Marines and a father who'd chosen not to hate him for it.
Vegito told one last story, about a hill where a rock told him that kings are a bad habit. "So we're replacing kings with chores," he finished. "The chore tonight is buy someone a drink, even if it's just water and a place to sit."
The room laughed the way rooms do when they know they've been invited to be better and that it's going to feel good.
They paid triple and tipped double and left a fresh purse behind labeled FOR BAD DAYS. On their way out, Kalifa popped the CP0 bubble in the tile room and left the agent with a comb for his whiskers and a voucher for one (1) humility class at the church down the street. He did not thank her. Yet.
Cutaways — Chewing the Prank
Marineford – Briefing Room
Sengoku listened to the report without interrupting. The lieutenant finished with, "…and then, sir, the tavern printed receipts that credited the rounds to Marine Seizure Account 44B traced through… sir, through CP0."
Sengoku closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course it did."
Tsuru didn't bother to hide her smile. "He made the Government buy a district a drink."
"Worse," Sengoku said, grim and amused in the same breath. "He made us buy goodwill."
Pangaea Castle – Elder Chamber
Saint Topman Warcury's cane ticked a staccato on marble. "He turned a lawful seizure into a spectacle."
Saint Marcus Mars' mouth was a hard line. "He turned it into a party."
Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro's voice was dry as old books. "Parties are harder to outlaw than pirates."
Saint Shepherd Ju Peter adjusted his hat and considered the ceiling as if it might supply mercy. "And the money trail…?"
"Wiped," Saturn hissed. "With laughter."
From the shadow behind the throne, Imu spoke as if indulging a dog. "Set a trap he cannot smile through."
"How?" Mars asked, almost polite.
"Threaten what he brought with him," Imu said softly. "Not what he takes."
No one said children aloud. The candles burned shorter anyway.
Morgans
The big bird scribbled with both wings.
GOV'T PICKS UP THE TAB: SKY PIRATE MAKES CP0 BUY EVERYONE A ROUNDSubhead:Sources Confirm: Paper Crowns Also Issued
He laughed so hard he suffocated a little and considered it cardio.
Afterglow on the Embrace
Night made the harbor look honest. The crew sprawled across the main deck in the city's warm noise like they owned the idea of off-duty.
Cosette dealt dessert like a card shark—cream and fruit, dusted sugar, plates vanishing faster than pity. Mink girls compared nap spots on the figurehead's hair and concluded the left curl had superior pillow qualities.
Reiju sat with York and Lilith at the sketch table, drawing over the Stage Not Guillotine board. "We need a first broadcast that can't be spun as a threat," Reiju said.
"History," Robin said from the railing. "Ohara. Amazon Lily's founding. Otohime's plea. Nolan's truth." She tapped the chalk. "A joke," she added, eyes glinting. "Joy Boy would insist."
"Done," Lilith said. "We lace the transmission with the chorus key we found on the island. Make the whole world's ears itch if they try to lie about it afterward."
Vegito lay back with his hands behind his head, watching the stars do their old tricks. "We'll make tyrants suffer the indignity of context," he decided. "That's worse than a bruise."
Nami updated the tavern map and drew a little foam head over Lantern Ledger. "Four down," she announced. "Eight to go."
Chopper held his 1,000-Beli poster on his chest like armor and fell asleep mid-growl. Boa draped a blanket over him with imperial delicacy and pretended she hadn't.
Bell-mère lowered herself beside Vegito, flicked ash over the side, and didn't look at him when she said, "Imu's going to try something low."
"I know," Vegito said.
"Not with force," she said. "With… mean."
He rolled onto an elbow, looked at his family scattered across a deck that had carried them this far and would carry them farther, and let a thin ribbon of power curl through the wood like a promise. The ship hummed back, protective and smug.
"They can try," he said. "We already did the hardest thing."
"What's that?" Bell-mère asked.
He nodded at his crew. "We got this right."
She bumped his shoulder. "Cocky."
He smiled. "Confident."
System | Daily Login
[System | Daily Login Complete]Reward: Bottomless Tab (Local) — A consumable marker that, when placed in any tavern and tapped, opens a prepaid tab funded by the user's vault for the next three hours. All receipts stamped with PAID FORWARD.[Inventory Updated][Crew Cohesion] +3% (shared story event)[Note]: Roger's Bottle resonance: pleased.
Vegito twirled the slim marker between fingers, then flicked it to Nami. "Your kind of treasure."
She caught it, eyes bright. "We're going to need several."
"Win another round of cards," Nojiko suggested.
Nami grinned. "Already did."