The port of Alabasta was tightly sealed by the king's guards.
Young King Cobra himself had ridden out to bolster his forces.
"Do not be afraid! If these pirates would destroy our home, you must lift your weapons! With your king and the royal house here, Alabasta's people will not suffer!"
Cobra was hot-blooded and earnest.
He had sealed the harbor, waiting for Sharn's crew to return. Before that, he had asked the nearby Navy station for support—only to receive no reply. Rumors said Sharn's crew had smashed a tavern and then vanished.
Cobra searched for days and found nothing; the tavern staff had mysteriously disappeared, as if someone well funded had quietly paid them off.
Cobra concluded those people were not ordinary tavern workers but agents in disguise. Alabasta was in trouble, and he had no idea how deep the enemy had infiltrated. The Celestial Dragons' hands reached everywhere.
All he could do in public was guard the port and protect as many civilians as possible.
Suddenly, a gust of wind swept in and Moria slammed onto the deck. He sprang up and looked toward the harbor: the royal guards stood ready, weapons raised.
"You pirates are surrounded! We are the royal guards, charged with Alabasta's safety!"
The guards were tall and well armed—reassuring compared with ordinary civilians. But against a crew rumored to be all Devil Fruit users and killers like Sharn's, they were inadequate.
"Captain, we're surrounded!" Moria cried. Before he finished, Kuzan and Uulki were hurled against him, slamming into a wall and coughing blood.
"Prepare for battle!" Kuzan clenched his fists and took a position along one side of the ship to stop anyone boarding; Uulki took the other side.
"I'm going to be crushed by you guys!" Moria complained, about to stand—then Molly (Molly? — the text calls her 茉莉) glided through the air and scared him off.
"You're so jealous, little Moria—afraid of a gentle hug," she teased. "Compared with humans, I'm barely in my twenties."
A small mountain suddenly fell into the harbor; spray flew everywhere. The wolf-faced giant blinked at the guards, briefly thinking of the Navy base in the West Blue. Olvia hovered in the air holding Ginny.
"It's fine, Olvia—Captain Sharn has it under control," Ginny said cheerfully; she was now well-off and carefree.
"Come on, Kuma—hurry!" someone called. Kuma looked bewildered. He still wondered how Sharn's so-called "upper form" of the Paw fruit worked and why the captain could eat so much. Maybe Sharn was just a big eater like Ginny.
"Damn you—every time you pull stunts like this! Falling into the sea as a Devil Fruit user is dangerous!" Kaido muttered, remembering days when Sharn had slammed him into the sea. "If you don't die, it's nothing!" Sharn had landed perfectly on the bow; Kaido's forehead darkened at his bad luck for having this captain.
Once the crew were all aboard, Sharn looked back at the port. The royal guards filled the harbor—Cobra himself and his officers glaring.
"So you plan to move against us? Cobra!" Sharn called. "I know what you want. Buried things will be unearthed by storms."
The guards and ministers didn't understand. Cobra snapped, "Shut up! What right do you pirates have to say such things?" He was serious—if the royal family did not know its own secrets, they were failing their duty.
"I think you'll end up begging me," Sharn replied, and with that he ordered the sails set and the ship pushed off.
Cobra, stunned, ordered the cannons to open fire. "Do not pursue—keep firing!" he barked, hurrying off to send a secret party to search the desert. Under cannon fire, the modified archaeologist ship sailed out of Alabasta. No storm could shake Sharn now—but his crew were thoughtful.
Kaido sat at the stern troubled by what Olvia had read aloud from the Poneglyph: about the ancient mechanical giant and the Nika fruit. Kuma was ecstatic: "Did you hear, Ginny? That fruit is Nika—our captain will become the legendary Sun God Nika!"
The Bakaniya oral tradition had always passed down the Nika legend; nobody wanted it more than Kuma. "Kuma—our family has a home now!" Ginny clapped and patted her treasure chest.
Below decks, Olvia recorded everything. From the sky-island records to the buried mechanical giant in Alabasta—what had happened to that ancient civilization? Why did such advanced tech vanish? She resolved to learn more. On the bow, Sharn sat alone, staring at the compass in his palm.
The Demonic Compass stopped turning. This time it presented a long-awaited single-choice fate.
[Fate Singularity — A New Choice Appears]
Choice 1: Ignore the Ice Fruit and avoid the trap. — Reward: Logia (Natural-type) — Snow Fruit (a weak Logia unless developed).
Choice 2: Play their game and seize the Ice Fruit. — Reward: Paramecia (Superhuman-type) — Mimic Fruit.
Choice 3: Leave none alive; break CP0 and CP9 to the bone. — Reward: Devil Fruit — Zoan (Mythical) — Vampire Form.
Sharn sneered at the first two options.
The third prize was the only one worth taking: Vampire Form. In the years to come, two people would possess a vampire-style Zoan—one the Red Count (who would escape Impel Down decades later), and the other a cloned, modified Buckin. Right now, the fruit was still unclaimed.
"Time to get acquainted," Sharn decided. He would take the Ice Fruit and win the Vampire Form.
Just then Kuzan rushed in, holding a letter—the kind left by CP0 operatives when Sharn's crew had departed into the desert.
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