2.5

There's small quantities of lamp oil on this ship. Mostly for lamps, but Usopp's portable burners also run on it. You should really import some equipment, but you just haven't gotten around to it yet. While you wait, you stir the mixture as best you can, trying to keep it from getting too viscous.

"Here, I've got..."

At that moment, the ship pitches slightly, something outside jostles Usopp slightly, and he trips on the sill of the door. The open bottle of kerosene he's carrying goes flying towards you. Usopp lunges after it, off balance, but misses. You snatch it out of the air, but a little splashes over your table, splashing on the dying flame of your burner's wick and re-igniting. Now the table is a little on fire.

You really should have cut your losses there, but instead you try to recover what you were cooking from the tray you set it down on. You're not sure why in hindsight, it was just smoke paste, the worst it would have done was spew smoke everywhere. Now you have an open bottle of kerosene in one hand and a hot pan in the other.

At that moment Usopp finally finishes falling from his lunge, hits the floor, bounces head over ass, and slams against one of the other tables. That rattles the wall, and Boo Jack's leather bag of bombs tips slowly off the shelf you stored it on. You prioritize and drop the pan, to try to grab at the bombs before they hit something crucial. You manage to grab all three that slip out, then nab the bag's drawstring on a single outstretched finger. Your pan clatters to the table, where it must have spilled some, because there's a woosh behind you and the room starts to fill with thick, white "smoke". You don't have hands to hold all three bombs that escaped the bag either, and are left juggling them in one hand, half blind, in a room with a spreading fire.

"Taylor!" Usopp shouts through the smoke. You can see his upper half as he picks himself up.

"Get out of here!" you say. You juggle your way carefully towards the door. Usopp instead goes for the table and tries to smother the fire by patting it down with his the metal tray and his hands.

"Fire!" you hear someone - Nami? - shout from the upper deck.

"Oil fire!" you yell in response. Hopefully that will stop someone like Luffy from trying to spray water everywhere.

As you reach the door, Sanji pulls it fully open from outside, and you shove the bombs you're juggling towards him, where he catches one in each hand by reflex. Hand now free, you yank the bag open and drop all three in it, then turn to pull Usopp away from the table. Sanji picks up the blanket he dropped and rushes in to smother the flames.

The three of you clear out of the room to let the smoke disperse and you and Usopp cough up half your lungs on the deck.

"You okay?" you ask after you've recovered.

Usopp winces, showing you reddened palms that are sure to blister, then continues his cough.

"Sorry," you say. Damn, that could have been really bad. You grab a cup of water from the kitchen and offer it to him.

He clears his throat, then speaks, voice slightly hoarse.

"Not the first accident," he says with a grimance. "Wasn't your fault, either."

"What the hell happened?" Sanji demands, as the rest of the crew gathers around.

You explain, and as you do it becomes clear that it really just was bad luck. More like a freak accident, actually.

"Oy, are you sure you should be experimenting with explosives on a wooden ship?"

"Usopp does it all the time, shitty cook. You're the one more likely to start a grease fire."

"Say that again, melon-head!"

"Man, the Merry almost burned down," Luffy says, sounding way too pleased given what happened.

"Hey, this is no laughing matter," Nami growls, grabbing him by the shirt collar and shaking him.

"Shishishishi... but everything worked out fine," he replies, completely ignoring her worry.

As you run Usopp's hands under cold water and pull out the bandages again, you can't help but ask...

"Why'd you do it?" you ask him. "Trying to put it out with your bare hands? You were lucky they aren't a lot worse."

"This ship is my baby," he tells you, although he looks suitably contrite. "I wasn't going to let something happen to the Merry because I was careless."

"A few burns on the floor of a cabin aren't worth risking your life over," you tell him sternly.

"Yes, mom," he replies. You hope he gets it.

Spoiler: New Designs

Rudimentary Smoke Bomb - A circular smoke bomb that uses some kind of ignition and pressure applied to a chemical mixture in the center to jet smoke out holes in the shell. The smoke is centered on the bomb and quickly disperses. Requires a pressure source (explosive or otherwise), a smoke source (usually a saltpeter mixture), and a basic shell (anything from an eggshell to clay to paper to a ping pong ball).

Improvised Explosive Powders - Basic nitrate-based recipes to pack into an object and make it blow up. You could have probably found this on your Earth's internet, but the Mayim methods have their own strengths, and who knows how safe the internet really is.

Back home, you have to shower and change, then grab a sandwich. Maybe you'll finish reading the X-Men comic to take your mind off that disaster.

Having lived in a world with superpowers all your life, it's hard to take the X-Men seriously. Almost every issue has a new villain, but in the real world it doesn't work like that. If things in Mahon work like the comics, the prison system kind of works, breakouts are rare but dangerous, and only the most vile villains recur. Outside of the Birdcage, Bet seems to suggest that parahumans can't really be contained, but X-Men is different. Despite the low-key nature of mutants, the government is equipped to handle all sorts in high-tech containment facilities.

Anyway, the X-Men kick off the next thirteen issues by once again fighting the Juggernaut, who seems just as invincible as Alexandria, if a lot less mobile. Then in short order, they mess around with mystical powers, stop an evil underground race from invading the surface, accidentally fight Spiderman (who is a thing there, you guess), prevent a conspiracy called Factor Three from starting World War III, and discover the conspiracy was secretly run by a genocidal alien. Oh, and they rescue each other from being kidnapped like twice an issue.

But the most shocking thing is... Professor X dies. In his dying message, he warns them of Magneto, who then returns for a third time and manages to defeat the X-Men alongside his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

And that's where your library's issues run out.

Good thing too, the plot twists are giving you a headache. It's almost impossible to imagine how the old comic books would map to an actual world - they're just so absurd. But as far as useful information, at least you know how incredibly varied the powers in the X-Men universe are. Everything from standard blasters and brutes to psychics to actual magic to tinkers to shapeshifters to power copiers to aliens. You'll have to remember not to let your preconceptions about parahumans color your view of superpowers on another world.

You glance outside. There's still about an hour until sunset. Enough time to head out for some air?

Your earlier excitement about your bird form is dampened somewhat when you consider how you might actually use it. You'll have to be careful not to be seen transforming, of course, but you'll also have to be careful not to be spotted too often. Petrels aren't really a winter bird. Still, the odds of someone connecting a weird bird to parahumans, nevermind to you, are really low.

With that in mind, you flutter from your backyard down to the shoreline and morph back on the rocky shore beneath a walkway, well out of sight of anyone.

From the downtown shore you make your way on foot to the Medhall building, one of the tallest buildings in the city. There's a large viewing deck on the roof. You're here just before it closes, and you lean on the railing as you look out over the downtown, trying to pick up and identify every flicker of motion you can in the fading light. It's extreme perception training, and you feel that you're going to have to give this several tries before you succeed. Still, looking from up here gives you a sense of perspective.

As the viewing deck empties out, you notice a thin figure in a hooded coat slowly surveying the streets below the other end of the viewing deck. It's only a moment, but you catch their face.

Sophia Hess.

What the heck is she doing up here? Did she not notice you? She seems to be looking out over the city in the same way you were. Maybe she's scouting something? Why as Sophia and not as Shadow Stalker, though?

Should you do anything?

[] [Sophia] You don't give a damn about her. Ignore her and leave. The less time you spend in her presence the better.

[] [Sophia] This is suspicious. Observe carefully and figure out what she's up to. Since it's her, you're sure it's no good.

[] [Sophia] Ward or not, you're not going to leave Sophia alone after what she's done to you. There's only one camera up here, and it's not pointing at either of you. Call her out and destroy her in a fight.

An Hour and a Half Later

Your mood has soured considerably after the encounter with Sophia, and a failure to make progress in the Sube Sube no Mi for the second day in a row doesn't help either. By dinner time you're fuming, and your dad raises his eyebrow slightly.

Dinner on the Merry, on the other hand, will take you mind off anything.

"Feeling better?" dad asks, as you ship leftovers back and forth and share the day's pictures.

"Yeah," you say, as you show him a picture of Luffy's mouth being stretched sideways by an irate Nami. "You can't help but smile when that's across the table, right?"

Dad chuckles at the picture somewhat.

"God, that's so weird."

"You sound like a teenager, dad..."

Kachi Kachi no Mi training seems simple enough, and you follow the same general outlines you used to improve your other Devil Fruit. You can now hold the transformation through basic movement, even though it still takes ages to activate and still is ineffective against any kind of hit. Still, you're quickly getting better. You just hope it's enough for the Grand Line.

2.2.1 (Extra Vote)

You sit propped up against the headboard in your bedroom, sketchbook and pencil at the ready.

Dozens of costume designs sit at the edge of your mind, fingertips ready to translate them onto paper. But your fingers don't move. Instead, you frown slightly, lost in thought.

If this was a simpler time, if you had a simpler power, you wouldn't hesitate. You'd draw up a costume based on your superpower and go to town, possibly literally. But there are more factors at play than running around the streets playing dressup and beating up gang members.

By waiting two full months you've somehow acquired the burden of knowledge.

Deep knowledge of history. The cycles violence that humans have committed against each other since the dawn of your species, and the economics that drive crime and war. Understanding of parahuman powers. Trigger events, and how parahuman conflict just produces more of them. Tactics to knock over every gang in Brockton Bay. Ways to keep anyone from joining a gang in the first place. Experience from several fights, even a few well above your reach - as much combat experience as the average parahuman, by the statistics. You think that says more about cape lifespans than any kind of expertise on your part. Knowledge of fashion, of all things, telling you how to make an impression, how to portray shining hope or to strike fear in the hearts of the wretched with no more than a few folds of cloth.

The knowledge that your power is to be used to help humanity and all persons.

Before you start sketching, you need to have at least an inking...

What kind of hero do you want to aim towards?

[] [Heroism] Superwoman. You're going to make this city better, and that means you're going to be the best hero there ever was. You'll make sure that no crime escapes your reach, and you'll show everyone that kind, moral heroes who can make a real difference do exist. You'll stand out as an example to the citizens of this beleaguered city, and to the capes in it. Maybe one day to the world.

[] [Heroism] Pragmatist. You're going to make this city better, and that means digging out the causes, the enablers. You aren't going to pointlessly patrol and you aren't going to merely react to crimes. You are going to hunt down villains, nail them to the PRT cell you throw them in, and make sure no one replaces them. And if the world needs solutions to things like the Endbringers, you'll turn over every rock to find them.

[] [Heroism] Visionary. You're going to make this city better, and that means you're going to set yourself above the cape war. Brockton Bay is in shambles because of poverty, economics, and lack of opportunity. You'll have to break some villains of course, but it's worth far more to focus on making Brockton Bay and Earth Bet greater than their problems. Of course, you'll attract all sorts of attention, but heaven help anyone who gets in your way.

And what's your attitude to rules and expectations of society or towards any personal moral code?

[] [Strictness] Uncompromising. The law is meant to be obeyed. The courts and prisons are meant to work. If they don't, you can change that through political action. Even if the world isn't Just, you know your own right from wrong, and you aren't going to compromise your integrity, even if it means walking the harder road. That's your responsibility as a hero.

[] [Strictness] Flexible. The law is the best our society can put forward, but it's not the best each person can do. You can still do what is right, but you don't pretend to know what exactly that is for any given situation. Maybe you'll have to bend a few rules here and there, whether it's to get something necessary done or because the rules aren't Just in the first place. That's your burden as a hero.

Spoiler: Examples of Each Type

Keep in mind that these examples aren't just shining successes, but also of people who tried to meet the ideal but fell short, or who didn't do a very good job in the first place. They all still count.

Uncompromising Superwoman - Those who stand up for an ideal and stick to it no matter what, whether they pull it off or even if they don't. Superman, Wonder Woman. What Taylor thinks Alexandria is. New Wave, even Panacea. Especially Panacea.

Flexible Superwoman - Those who try hard but are willing to make compromises, for good or for ill. Miss Militia. Spiderman. Battery. Parian.

Uncompromising Pragmatist - Your typical antihero, following a legal or moral code but usually willing to do whatever is necessary. Somewhat of a contradiction. Batman. Defiant.

Flexible Pragmatist - Heroes who ignore the rules to do what is necessary. The real Alexandria. Skitter. I'm sure there are more heroic examples but I don't have any off hand.

Uncompromising Visionary - Looking at the big picture, but trying to do the right thing or bring about changes within existing systems. Dragon. Professor X.

Flexible Visionary - Looking at the big picture but willing to overturn systems or societal conventions to get things done, sometimes ignoring the will of others. Iron Man. Armsmaster. Late-Worm Tattletale.

And of course, superheroes (and villains) don't fit into such neat boxes. Both categories are a spectrum, and even the full spectrum doesn't apply to everyone. You could easily be a little of all three, to follow a code yet bend the law, and so on.

Keep in mind this is only your initial goal. It will help Taylor come up with costume designs that fit the general image and with Taylor's initial strategy for dealing with Brockton Bay. This is not a permanent choice. How you actually conduct yourself in the long term depends far more on future personal experiences, both here in Earth Bet and elsewhere.

I also have your rolls.Interlude 1: Butterflies

Takes place at various times before December 31, 2010 (Brockton Bay time, Earth Bet).

Eleven days ago.

"Musashi, was it? Middle Musashi, if I'm not mistaken. I met your brother once, you know."

The black-haired samurai doesn't respond, but inclines his head in a respectful nod.

"I see. I thought I recognized her style. Your apprentice?"

He shrugs, then nods slightly.

"Interesting. By the way, you have my thanks for what you did for my son."

He raises an eyebrow slightly, but no explanation is forthcoming. In fact, nothing remains of his conversation partner but the wind.

Nine days ago.

"Tashigi."

"Captain?"

There's a long pause. Smoker stares into the dark gray sky. Finally, he speaks.

"Hebert Taylor. Who was she?"

The waves that crash against the bow of their ship bring no answer.

Eight days ago.

"Sir!" A breathless lieutenant bursts into the marine office. "It's Captain Smoker, sir! They just snailed us from Loguetown! Smoker's deserted his station. He took the frigate and set off in pursuit of a pirate! They say he's going to chase him all the way to Grand Line."

The aging gentleman with the braided beard leans back in his chair.

"Well, Smoker, was it?"

"Sir?"

"About damn time. Someone finally lit a fire under his smokey ass."

"Sir???"

"I'll allow it!" he barks with the authority of command. "Reassign Captain Smoker and his squadron to Marine Headquarters and change his jurisdiction to Grand Line patrol. Is Garp in?"

"No sir!"

"Of course he isn't. Not that he'd do the paperwork anyway. Then get me a list of Commanders eligible for promotion. East Blue natives. Looks like the Loguetown garrison will have a new Captain."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Seven days ago.

Her sandaled feet click against the cobblestone. She bends down to retrieve the object.

"There you are."

The lady with long black hair picks up the massive iron club from where it had landed halfway into a wall. She inspects it, dusting off some dirt, before slinging it over her shoulder with a far-too-dainty hand.

"I'm coming for you, miss feather duster."

Four days ago.

The white seabird with the messenger bag circles the ship. Humans are active on the deck, but there's no sign of her delivery target. She flies closer, then alights on the railing. An orange-haired girl walks over. The news coo brandishes a list at the human. Near the bottom is a name, "Hebert Taylor".

"Taylor's not here. Does she have to pay?"

Annoyed, the news coo shakes her head. No, this particular human had already paid for a year's subscription. How is she not here? The news coo knows the human should be on this ship. She had been in the past, even yesterday, when the ship was docked at that strange not-really-a-sky-island.

"I can hold it for her," the orange-haired human says.

The news coo gestures her wings frantically at this violation of procedure. The orange-haired girl laughs lightly, but shakes her head.

"I'm sorry, she really isn't here. She'll probably be away more often than not. Maybe you should just drop the paper on the deck?"

Annoyed, the news coo drags the paper out of her bag with her beak and does exactly that, before squacking indignantly and taking wing. She almost wishes Hebert Taylor was on a pirate ship, then procedure would let her just drop the paper on the deck without even landing. But she had never encountered an East Blue pirate who was a paying subscriber, anyway. How infuriating!

Two days ago.

The path shifts slightly. She stops for a half second. This is not unusual. It happens regularly, in times of great conflict up to several times a day. Some trigger the path doesn't predict, crossing her path a hundred steps down the line. She draws her pistol. It seems to be needed today after all.

One day ago.

The annoying Captain just stood there, polluting the air with those disgusting cheap cigars.

"You aren't even a Rear Admiral," Captain Smoker growls.

In response, he leans forward from the edge of his throne, into the infamous Captain's face.

"And you're out of your jurisdiction," he spits. "Eighth Branch is conducting an operation here. If you want to operate in these waters, you better help out." He leans back into his throne and looks down on the commander of Loguetown's garrison. Wasn't there some communication from HQ about Smoker earlier? Well, no matter.

"Maybe we can help each other," Captain Smoker's lieutenant says as the two commanding officers glare at each other. "You have a fleet. We have a pirate to catch. We have Smoker's powers. You say you're conducting a search and capture."

"Tashigi," Smoker cautions.

Behind the throne, the one of the two mercenaries speaks up, a gravelly voice echoing past his or her face mask.

"My target is aboard the Straw Hats' ship. Nelson, this will help both of us."

There's a moment of silence. Nelson fails to suppress a scowl.

"Fine!" he barks. "You say they're heading for Reverse Mountain, Smoker?"

"Yes," Smoker says, tone bored. Smoker and Tashigi share glances.

"Adjutant!" Nelson fails to twist around in his throne far enough to address his subordinate directly. "Bring out the map!"

2.3

Yesterday...

Sophia is up to something. Your mind races as you recall the Ward regulations, and your power provides - all patrols must be conducted in partnership and in costume. So if she's doing something parahuman related out here, it's either in conjunction with the Protectorate or PRT, or unsanctioned.

You step back from the railing and instead lean next to the door to the viewing platform, an air conditioning unit partially obscuring you from her view. There's no other people up here right now. What is she looking for?

Sophia leans out over the rail and stares intently down the street, down towards the old apartments that ring the edge of downtown. You can't read her expression at this angle, but you imagine it's a scowl - it usually is. After a moment, she glances back, and you follow her gaze to the camera. She seems to miss spotting you, as she then turns into a shadow and drops through the floor.

That's...

Well, you suppose technically there's nothing wrong with using powers to get around. If she's willing to be so cavalier with her identity.

Wait, how does that even work? Shadow Stalker doesn't normally transport herself by phasing buildings. She roofhops and uses the shadow state while in the air. She always looks where she's going before phasing through anything solid. Your theory was she needed concentration. But that was a no-look. So it's not concentration or targeting. She must have a reason for looking at the walls and floors, but she didn't need to this time.

That means Sophia is used to being up here, enough that she knows she doesn't have to check that spot of floor. Interesting.

You walk to the railing and look down over the street. The building's entrance is below. It's not like she disappears. Unless she changes costume she's not about to phase all the way to the next building.

Sure enough, four minutes pass until someone the same shape as Sophia and the same color as her jacket walks out the front entrance.

You check the camera and the deck (empty), but catch yourself before morphing to bird form. Wouldn't do to be less cautious than Sophia Hess. Instead you head in and take the stairs down to ground level three at a time. Fortunately once you're out on the street, you still glimpse Sophia two and a half blocks down. Downtown is filled with security cameras, so you jog lightly away from the skyscrapers, searching for a good spot to turn to bird.

You probably shouldn't be stalking a cape in their civilian identity, but this is Sophia. Is that an acceptable justification?

To your surprise, Sophia doesn't head towards the PRT headquarters, where the Wards are based, nor towards the Winslow area, where you're pretty sure she lives. She's heading westwards away from downtown entirely. You spot an empty park without any cameras and duck behind a copse of trees at the shore of a frozen pond to swap to petrel form, taking flight.

From above, you watch Sophia walk down Edison Street, hooded, hands in her pockets, head on a swivel. You know enough about Brockton Bay that you know this is a "bad" area of town. Much like housing near the old Docks is now ABB territory, and the Archer's Bridge area has Merchant drug pushers. Edison Street is Empire territory. Sophia's not doing anything stealthily at all.

You watch from a block over as she exchanges angry words with three shaved-head males.

Is she looking for a fight?

That incident passes with nothing but rude gestures, but you can't feel the tension, even from up on high. Sophia looks up at the building the skinheads came from and seems to inspect it, looking carefully at the address.

Oh. She's scoping the Empire out.

That's a really dangerous, inefficient way to do things. It's very Sophia, though.

You hang around for another twenty minutes until the sun is finally behind the horizon, but nothing else really happens. It's getting dark and you're pretty sure Sophia is heading home, which is a line you're not going to cross. You wing your way home.

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-SWB

Date: Friday, December 31, 2010

You drop by the Merry and leave a note on the icebox door that you won't be in today. Too much to do on Bet. Speaking of, there was a quick mention on the local news that Shadow Stalker came upon a drug deal on the late patrol and had arrested a dealer and two accomplices before being interrupted by Rune and Collider working together. Shadow Stalker had apparently retreated rather than keeping the Empire capes there until her Protectorate patrol partner arrived, which doesn't seem a very Sophia thing to do, even two on one. You think there might have been something in play that went unreported.

Returning back to Bet, you start the day's work. With some practice, you're now a decent handyman. Handywoman. You're able to go through all the appliances in the house and ensure there's nothing about to break, and you have a good idea how to put objects back together. You also fiddle a bit with the jammed revolver you have and you think you know how to both fix it and ensure it doesn't jam again. You put it with the gear that you usually take to Mayim, along with a few tools. You'll fiddle with it whenever you have free time.

Before lunch, you go online and look up ways to appear older than you are. A lot of them focus on changing appearance with things like heels or new hairstyles. That isn't exactly what you want, so you look up stage makeup and costuming next. This meshes quite well with fashion, and you feel good about your prospects when it comes to designing physical disguises.

Acting practice is going to be necessary, unfortunately. That's not something that comes naturally to you.

You meet dad, and have an early lunch. Dad's packing stuff for a few hours out in the cold this afternoon.

"Before we go, I need to buy some fabrics," you inform him. You take a breath and then lay it on. "To make a costume."

Dad takes a very deliberate bite of his sandwich, chews, swallows, then asks simply, "Already?" He raises one eyebrow. "You told me you were still having trouble with that friction power."

"Ah, yeah, I'm not about to go fight criminals or anything. I just want to get started on this in advance. I need basic tailoring supplies, but if I can buy something stab, impact, or fire resistant, all the better. Also a bunch of other items. Um, things like radios. A police scanner, maybe."

"Hm," he says.

"Hm," you parody right back jokingly, to try to hide your nervousness.

"Well, sure. We can both go."

"Wh-?" You cut yourself off. "Um, okay?"

"Not that it matters too much if you're fabric-shopping, but if you'll let me be paranoid, a father and daughter don't give the same impression as a teenager or a middle-aged man shopping alone. If someone can identify one of us, they can identify both of us anyway. And I know this city better than you do."

Dad gives a slight smile.

"Plus, I have the money."

"Plus, you have the money," you agree. "From the allowance I pay you," you joke. And he has the car. And dad knows a bunch of people all over the city, which could come in handy.

Dad cracks a smile and shakes his head at that as you put on your winter clothes.

With dad driving, the two of you hit up a few fabric stores and buy a selection of what you think will be useful. You can't find kevlar or nomex at regular stores and try not to ask too many questions, but dad goes into a survival place and comes out with a stab and bullet resistant vest, then picks up a never-used set of fire-resistant coveralls from a friend, both of which you're pretty sure you can take apart and integrate into your own designs. You're damn good at tailoring, after all, and strong enough to wear something very heavy. As for regular fabrics, you're drawn to some high-quality silks, which have a lot of good properties for costume-making. It's expensive, but dad still has some of the money from the first set of treasure he pawned. Finally, you find a relatively new handheld police scanner at a stall full of used electronics down at the Lord's Street Market. You think the stall and its owner is somewhat shady - is it stolen? used by a gang in some way? - but with two of you there you manage to bargain him down to a reasonable price and dad's right, father and daughter is a lot less weird than doing that alone.

It's early afternoon when you finally finish. Dad informs you that most of the original cash from your first import of Mayim jewelry is now spent.

The cemetery is up towards Captain's hill, nearer to the edge of town, towards the woods. The ground's still covered with snow, but the sidewalks have been cleared.

Dad's packed a small bag with a blanket, hot drinks, and so on. You guess the middle of winter isn't the best time to visit a grave, but it doesn't really matter to you. Dad's bundled up, while you dress very slightly lighter than the climate.

"Cold resistance," you say to him when he gives you a funny look.

You pass under the large bare trees that break the wind here, trudge off the path into the snow, and brush the snow off the tombstone.

Annette Rose Hebert

1969-2008

She taught something precious to each of us.

Dad's brought shovels, and you spend a minute clearing enough snow to lay out a blanket.

"Hi, mom," you say, acutely aware that she isn't actually here.

"Annette," dad says, probably feeling the same way. You haven't been here together since... actually, you don't remember. The funeral?

Neither of you is particularly religious, but you both take a moment in silence. When he's done, dad sets out a small vase of fresh flowers and sits down.

There's a moment where you hesitate. What had you asked to come here to do?

"I guess it's no less embarrassing to talk to you here than when I'm alone," dad says suddenly, facing mom's grave and addressing it directly.

You blink.

"Taylor's a smart girl. She suggested this, and she's right. It's easier to talk pretending you're here than just to each other."

Ah... you hadn't really put it in words, but dad saw right through you.

"What can I say that you haven't already heard? Taylor and I are better now than we've been in a while. I see her more, and we're talking again. I guess she'll tell you about what she's up to. But to be honest, I'm scared."

"Dad..." you say.

"Before, I didn't know what was wrong. Maybe that was easier. Now, I know exactly what's happening, but I don't know if I can do anything."

His voice wavers slightly, and you grab his arm lightly.

"Damnit, the more I think about it, the more worried I get. Capes have such a dangerous life. And even on the other worlds, she can still get into fights, she can still get badly hurt. I didn't really think at first, because I don't see it myself, but it's just as real as the gangs here. And Taylor, she can - she has taken care of herself. But that doesn't mean - it still doesn't mean that one day when she's off in another world, that something can't happen. And I can't do anything. I won't even know, because she'll never show up, and there's no way for me to get to her, I won't even get a phone call from the hospital..."

You heart sticks in your throat as dad finishes his rant. Dad lets out a shaky breath and untightens his clenched hands. You drop your hand back to your side. He blinks, then turns to look at you.

"It won't work, will it? She...Annette, your mom, she'd tell me that I'm worrying about something I can't do anything about. She'd find a way to support you properly. And if she couldn't, she'd say... she'd..."

"I don't know," you admit as dad trails off, still a bit stunned by his outburst. You never had a mom as a teenager. You remember her as brilliant and supportive, but that's all in the very distant past of a child.

"What she'd say," dad says slowly, looking you in the eyes but somehow looking past you at the same time, "is that we'd have to find what we can do, and try to stop thinking about what we can't."

Dad seems to focus in on you.

"I'll have to work on that," he says with a sigh.

The both of you look back at the silent grave. You spend half a minute in silence.

Dad rouses himself first, standing and putting a hand on your shoulder.

"You probably have something to say, too," he says. "I'll be waiting in the car. Take as long as you need."

"Stay," you say, catching his sleeve and tugging him down again slightly. "I have a few things to say, but you should hear them too."

Dad sits back down slowly.

"Mom," you say. You shift nervously, stretching legs that are about to fall asleep. "It's been a while."

Last August, if you're remembering correctly. You had hope that the new school year would be better than the last one. You had spent a whole year lonely, with you former best friend outright scornful to you. But your hope for a new start in 10th grade wasn't to be. She had gathered more people and deliberately targeted you even more instead.

"A lot has changed," you say. "I finished school. Maybe there'll even be a way to do college. Ah, but first. I got superpowers. That made everything possible..."

Telling Mom about your powers is easy. What's not easy is everything before and everything after that.

"I guess I'm feeling a lot better about life now, but it's not just because of powers. School wasn't working for me. My classmates..." You next words catch in your throat just thinking about them. The trio. Emma. Thinking about Emma still hurts. You skip over that part. Dad knows you and Emma aren't really friends now. That's enough, isn't it?

"I think the best part is that I don't have to go back," you say carefully. "I know for sure I never had a trigger event, but if it had happened, in retrospect, I wouldn't have been surprised."

Dad takes a sharp inhale of breath at that.

"It's kind of unbelievable looking back," you say, deliberately ignoring him and trying to just get everything out. You'd never finish if you became self-conscious now. Your voice sounds far more detached than you feel. "There really wasn't any one day I could call the worst, but just... every day, little things, wearing on me. An assignment wrecked. Juice on my chair. A book missing. Nonsense gossip where I can hear it..."

You stop, let out an angry breath, and let the cool air take it away from you.

"I guess I didn't think it was a big deal then, but after being away for a month... it really was. Evey if my GED was all I get out of this, it's worth not being there anymore, not being chipped away piece by piece."

Dad slides over to you and pulls you into a full hug. You let him pull you in and grab him back as he holds you tightly.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I didn't know."

You let that hang there, extinguishing the tiny ember of anger and wondering how you would have fared if you had just said something to dad earlier.

"I didn't let you know," you mumble into his shoulder.

Dad holds you for a long moment, then disengages, returning to your side.

"Didn't the staff...?" he asks.

"Worse than useless," you say with just a little venom.

"Damnit. I should-" he cuts himself off, letting out a long breath.

"It's over," you say blankly, your stomach churning at the injustice of it. "Please, let it go." You have bigger fish to fry.

He slowly closes his mouth. You can tell he's still fuming, but you understand each other at least. You've raged against your teachers more than once yourself.

You pause, struggling to refind your thoughts. What else did you want to say? You glance around, but the cemetery is still utterly deserted.

"So, mom needs to know," you start with a little forced cheer, "I'm going to be a hero. I mean, I guess there's more to it than putting on a costume and beating up villains with Kung Fu."

Beside you, dad frowns, probably wondering where your flippancy is going.

"See, mom, dad, the more I've learned, the more complicated that idea gets. Not that I won't be a fighting vigilante," you correct quickly so dad doesn't get the wrong idea. "It's that the problems are so much bigger than Lung on the streets or Kaiser ordering neo-Nazis around."

Dad nods slightly.

"Did you know that more than one in ten Wards don't live to their eighteenth birthday?" Dad's swallows silently. It's not a statistic the PRT publishes, they prefer the percentage comparisons to non-Wards, but you're now a parahuman studies expert. "Everyone knows that the Endbringers have killed millions, but they've also displaced almost a billion. All refugees. A hundred years ago that would have been half the world's population." History. "Even if the Endbringers disappeared tomorrow, they wouldn't all find homes for decades. Assuming enough countries actually help."

You glance over at dad to make sure he's still following along.

"They say as much as half the world's population live in countries run by parahumans," you continue. Geography and current affairs. "I read a paper the other day that called what we do here in America 'cops and robbers'. Like we're playing around. Like cities like Brockton Bay aren't being strangled..."

You trail off. Dad knows this better than anyone. He's seen it first hand.

"The worst part is they're not completely wrong," you say. "Capes exist all over the world, and we even take them for granted now. Having powers mean a secret identity. But that doesn't necessarily happen on other worlds with powers. Is it because it's only been thirty years? Are things still shaking themselves out?"

"I remember before," dad says. "Vaguely. I was just a kid then, but you could tell the first parahumans weren't really serious. Didn't know what to do with their powers."

You nod.

"But even so, it stuck, didn't it? Maybe the first few parahumans just went with familiar patterns. But after thirty years? Shouldn't parahumans be more... normal? Is this -" you gesture around at the city "- really the best we can do? Little fiefdoms, costumes and masks, photoshoots and cape tourism?"

"We're stuck," dad says, drawing the one of the conclusions you've reached.

"Maybe. Maybe we're not stuck, and this is part of a downward spiral. Either way, things aren't getting better. Not if nothing changes."

You let that statement hang there. Dad's eyes slowly go wide as he catches your meaning.

"Christ, Taylor. You're talking about changing the whole world. Everything we think about parahumans. That's... isn't that way too big? What can one person even do?"

You shrug slightly. What indeed? "What else can I do? I'll still have to start small, here in Brockton. But I also have to keep in mind that there's more to changing this city than just arresting the villains. And when I have to go bigger, well, all I'm saying is I'm not going to limit myself. This power isn't meant to stop."

That last sentence. Was that you, or was it...?

"Taylor, you're talking years," dad says incredulously. "Decades, if not longer. Millions, no, billions of dollars. Tens of thousands of like-minded people at minimum." He pauses, frowning, as if normal counterarguments don't apply to the sheer scale of what you just proposed.

"How do you know you won't be fighting human nature?" he settles on. "I remember that thing about every power having a combat application. Maybe this is the best that can be done with so many dangerous powers around. And then there's the Endbringers..."

He lets the Endbringer problem hang there. You suppress a shudder. The Endbringers have a long history of fucking over people using powers for large-scale change. No one wants to end up the next Sphere. Both points dad mentioned are widespread views on the state of affairs on Earth-Bet, ones you even learned in Mr. Gladly's class. Neither have ever sat well with you.

"Yeah. Decades sounds reasonable. Short, even. But dad, my power doesn't have the same limits as anyone else's. Normal tinkers can't run factories. Normal trumps can't pull weird skills from another world and teach them to normals. I have at least two whole worlds at my fingertips, dad. If I don't think big and long-term, this is wasted."

Dad gives you a long look, the shakes his head once.

"Okay. Taylor, you haven't even gone out in costume once, and you're already going 'next step, The World!'. Take it one step at a time."

You look him in the eyes, and realize he's dead serious. Have you been getting ahead of yourself? No, long-term planning isn't a bad thing. But for now, all it really means is you're going to try to be a slightly different kind of hero.

Dad stands and pulls you to your feet. You shake out the tingles of sleep in your legs. The sun had come out, so it hadn't quite been as chilly as you thought, but dad must be pretty cold.

"She reminds me more of you every day," dad mutters almost silently as he places his hand on the headstone to say goodbye for now. You're pretty sure he didn't mean for you to hear that.

It's mid-afternoon as you finally head home. Both you and dad are subdued, emotionally drained, but multiple things are in the open now that weren't before.

Before dinner, perhaps unwisely, you poison yourself. You go through the spice cabinet and toy with dangerous doses of various food products. You're fortunately able to keep things down through dinner, but you don't think your resistance changed. Fortunately you now have a good idea of how too much of anything can be bad for you, which you suppose is poisoncrafting from a certain point of view. A little more poisoncrafting training and you'll be able to create basic chemical and plant based toxins for specific effects.

Sube Sube finally makes progress today, too. You're able to moderate whether any particular part of your body is slippery, but can't really do so quickly or instinctively. The whole power still takes concentration and time to start, but you hope that will go down with time.

Finally, you watch fireworks exploding over the bay from your backyard. Dad has a small glass of champagne for both of you, which is actually your first experience of any kind with alcohol.

"Happy New Year, Taylor."

"Happy New Year, dad."

Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Bet, Worm Multiverse, Worm-SynchronizedWritersBlock

Date: Saturday, January 1, 2011

"We need to find a fence," you state at the breakfast table.

Dad stares at you, blinks once, giving you an expression that tell you to explain yourself.

"Look, we have all this treasure from Mayim, over ten thousand dollars worth," you say, "but we can't do anything with it. I'm at the level where I have tinker skills, but without equipment that won't go anywhere. And there will be plenty of opportunities we can't take unless we have cash on hand."

"There's only two of us," dad says. "What's so important that we need ten thousand dollars in our pockets so quickly?"

"The kind of things I talked about yesterday," you say back. "Building technology. Upgrading my friends' ship. Helping law enforcement. Charities. Being able to pay people for jobs. Look, dad, the fact is, we can be very rich, and that will help us both get things done."

"But can't you wait a little? Once you're powerful enough, you won't have to worry about being discovered. You can act more openly in your cape identity. Buy technology. Sell gold. The works."

You realize dad's playing devil's advocate, which you're thankful for, but it's still a little annoying in the moment.

"We need money for some kinds of power, dad. Being powerful enough to protect myself and you from everything might never come, and it'll be slower if I can't spend wealth we already have."

"But it's dangerous to buy and sell where the gangs have influence. We both looked up the statistics. You told me that villains look for unusual activity, and my research agrees. And it's dangerous for friends and family too." By which he means each other. "If we sell everything outside of Brockton Bay we won't have as much trouble. And what about that new world? X-Men?"

"Mahon," you tell him.

"Right. We can't import money from there, but you can sell gold and buy equipment. Even if you're traced, no one can do anything against you since you live elsewhere."

"Won't going to other cities snag the attention of more powerful people? We don't have any real thinkers in Brockton Bay. And we don't know what's available in Mahon yet."

"Anyone can talk to their friends and recognize patterns, Taylor. If you're going to do this, it's better to be as cautious as possible. Let's say you start arresting criminals and capes on the street. That'll cause resentment. Anyone you deal with here will be better connected with the existing gangs than they possibly could be with you. Not to mention having your own people, if they include criminal contacts, is basically like starting a gang."

You frown, thinking hard. Dad's basically right.

"Could we use proxies?" you ask. "If we can find someone to sell for us, we make it even less likely to be identified."

"Shoving the risk off on other people?"

"Other people who aren't at risk at being forced into gangs, because they aren't capes, and won't look like capes if they're investigated."

"Which can still be traced back to you," he says. "And who will still be at risk dealing with gangs and criminals. Not to mention, where would we find people to sell for us?"

...you don't know. Dad's friends in the Dockworker's Union, maybe? No, they wouldn't do anything no questions asked. You don't have any friends here either. And dad's right about the risks.

"The risks are too high for anyone we'd actually trust enough to explain things to," you say uncertainly, confirming what dad just said.

You pause that thought for a moment. You basically have a cape team on Mayim. One here wouldn't be so bad. How would you find recruits, though?

"There are lawyers and agents who specialize in this kind of thing," dad says. "But they stay away from illegal behavior. If it looks like stolen goods, for example, they would probably refuse. If it's a cape thing, you might have to reveal your identity. I don't like that. I suppose it's possible to find someone who would deal with the mask..."

"Someone from out-of-town would be better, no?"

Dad nods.

"Why don't we try that?" you say. "Go in generic costume to an out-of-town lawyer or agent. See if they'll deal with capes or know someone who will. They probably have legal channels for selling things. That kind of thing will be watched, but at least we can protect the connection between cape identities and our real ones."

"All right. Let me know when you want me to take a day off. I'll do the research and arrange something. In the meantime, check out Mahon. I think most of your purchasing issues can be solved there."

Breakfast and the long conversation over, you get to the day's work. The final household repair skill you're working on is electrician. You watch several videos, and you seem to grasp the concept quickly enough. Headway makes large progress.

Learning to disguise yourself goes pretty quickly too. You end up seated on your bed, watching costume design and stage makeup videos, while modifying clothes on the fly, or playing with the limited makeup options you own. It doesn't really count as challenging work, but you learn a lot.

Just looking at yourself in the mirror, with your superhuman fitness you already look somewhat older. Maybe a healthy 18? You're pretty sure you aren't judging that objectively, maybe you should ask dad. But with the right clothes and a few additions, you can easily make yourself look 25 or 30. Older than that doesn't really pass close inspection, and depends heavily on disguising your physique and skin with concealing clothes.

Tomorrow you'll try to learn how to carry yourself.

You grab a quick lunch on the Merry and promise to be back this evening. Luffy can hardly contain himself with excitement over Reverse Mountain, and a nighttime ascent just adds to the anticipation.

Sube Sube races ahead today. That's two days in a row! You're now able to start it consistently and hold it in the back of your mind while doing normal, everyday activities, although you still have to take a moment when you want to change your slipperyness. You realize you don't really have a good awareness or control on things you're wearing or holding, if the power even applies to them, but you think it ought to work for clothes? Hard to say. You're going to have to test holding it during sparring or martial arts or sword practice next, which you expect to be more difficult. The startup concentration means it won't really work against surprise attacks, either, but you're extremely close to being bulletproof in combat itself.

Now you need a costume.

You sit propped up against the headboard in your bedroom, sketchbook and pencil at the ready.

Dozens of costume designs sit at the edge of your mind, fingertips ready to translate them onto paper. But your fingers don't move. Instead, you frown slightly, lost in thought.

If this was a simpler time, if you had a simpler power, you wouldn't hesitate. You'd draw up a costume based on your superpower and go to town, possibly literally. But there are more factors at play than running around the streets playing dressup and beating up gang members.

By waiting two full months you've somehow acquired the burden of knowledge.

Deep knowledge of history. The cycles violence that humans have committed against each other since the dawn of your species, and the economics that drive crime and war. Understanding of parahuman powers. Trigger events, and how parahuman conflict just produces more of them. Tactics to knock over every gang in Brockton Bay. Ways to keep anyone from joining a gang in the first place. Experience from several fights, even a few well above your reach - as much combat experience as the average parahuman, by the statistics. You think that says more about cape lifespans than any kind of expertise on your part. Knowledge of fashion, of all things, telling you how to make an impression, how to portray shining hope or to strike fear in the hearts of the wretched with no more than a few folds of cloth.

The knowledge that your power is to be used to help humanity and all persons.

Before you start sketching, you need to have at least an inking...

What do you want? You spoke with dad about this yesterday. You want to improve the whole world, no, all the worlds you can reach. You're going to enable others to improve their own lives, to stop villains and criminals from happening in the first place, to make sure any who do come forth can be taken care of with your assistance. Or without it. Neither are you going to let your unique powers be constrained by existing systems that don't really work perfectly - you're going to forge your own path. You've already started this on Mayim; you freed an entire island from tyrants less than a week ago.

Your pencil flies across the paper. It needs to be inspiring, heroic, and all that. But it also needs to break impressions. You want to come across as someone different. Someone above beating up gang members on the streets, someone who doesn't look like just a superhero, but like a revolutionary, and not just for people with masks.

An hour later, you have a few designs you like, one or two you think might work with some tweaking, and a half dozen you've discarded.

You leave those for now, you'll have to think about which design you want to actually make. Instead, you move on to something a little less glamorous. Yesterday you figured out how to consistently get mild effects from household food products. Today you're going to try effects from very dilute common chemicals, starting with testing the results on your skin. If you're certain you've succeeded in making the effects mild, you'll try a tiny bit of ingestion.

As you gradually apply and rinse chemicals from your skin, you definitely see the results compared to last time you tried this. Either less is being absorbed or what's being absorbed has less of an effect.

You carefully review the research you've done on effects, before mixing a dose that hopefully won't actually hurt you. But twenty minutes after drinking, your stomach churns. You hope that the sick reaction means that it's working and hasn't overwhelmed your body's ability to deal with it, but you're not too enthusiastic about getting it wrong and accidentally hurting yourself. You enter the bathroom just in case you need to... actually, maybe it would be a good idea to be ready to call an ambulance? You open your mouth to shout for dad.

And then it stops. You can feel Headway telling you you've made progress. Double progress, in fact. That's... exceptional. You actually aren't sure how you're going to train this now. Maybe you'll talk to Usopp, he's far more expert on poisons than you are.

Finally, you pack your Mayim kit and let dad know you might not be back until late, possibly as late as mid-morning. If everything goes well, you'll ascend Reverse Mountain today, and you're not going to miss this for the world.

Location: Vincinity of Reverse Mountain, Polestar Sea, East Blue Ocean, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Earth-Mayim, One Piece Multiverse, One Piece-SWB

Friday, May 13, 1532

You appear on the Merry's deck. It's after dark, but going up in the night is kind of exciting. You stumble slightly, lean against the railing, and stare out into the darkness. Was that a flash of light? A storm? The disorientation after using Nexus means you can't really tell...

"Taylor, get down!" Nami shouts from somewhere behind you.

You hit the deck, literally, as something flies above you with a whoosh, then explodes on the opposite side of the Merry's hull.

"Collier Shoot!"

Above you, Sanji kicks something out of midair. There's a massive splash as whatever he deflected hits the water around the ship.

You adjust your glasses back on properly and take stock of the situation.

In the dark, you can see flashes in the distance followed by booms of cannonfire.

Wait. That means...the Merry is under attack!

"Usopp!" Nami shouts. "What's out there?"

Luffy lands next to you, deflating from bouncing a cannonball off his rubber body.

"Argh, damnit! Who's shooting at the Merry?!"

You hear the thwack of Usopp's slingshot from the crow's nest. Four seconds later, a dazzlingly bright light bloom in the distance. Some kind of primitive star shell in slingshot form?

Illuminated under the ten-second-long flare are six large marine ships and a marine frigate. You spot the form of Captain Smoker on the foredeck of the frigate, the lead ship. Behind it, the larger ships form a crescent formation, and one of them is flying a Commodore's pendant. Reverse Mountain's lighthouse is visible in the background, the light sweeping around and temporarily re-illuminating each ship.

"That's Captain Smoker," you say to Luffy. He nods, frowning.

"Reverse Mountain is right there," Zoro comments from where he's holding onto the rigging.

"The Grand Line..." Luffy says wistfully.

"It's overcast. No moon," Nami says. "We could run the blockade. But the wind's against us right now, and we'd have to take out any lights."

"Against Smoker and six battleships?" Usoop shouts down. "You're crazy! We'd get caught for sure. The Merry can't take a fight like that!"

Those weren't battleships, you think to yourself. It's a rather academic point though. Seven ships is a lot no matter their firepower.

"As much as I hate to say it, I agree," Sanji says. "We can find a way around. They aren't going to keep such a big force here for very long."

In the distance, you can hear shouts as the marines prepare another volley. They're basically shooting blind, though.

"What do you think, Taylor?" Luffy asks you.

2.4 Ambush at Reverse Mountain 2

"Luffy, that's Smoker," you say, still feeling somewhat stunned. "He gets on the Merry and there's nothing we can do."

The feeling of surprise doesn't fade. This didn't happen in the manga. That shouldn't be surprising, but it's still a small shock. Does that mean the whale at the bottom of the mountain won't be there? Will Crocus be different? What about the island of bounty hunters? Or the Alabastan princess? Will Nami even get the same log pose?!

"Can we go around?" Sanji asks Nami.

"There's a current," Nami shouts up to the mast where Sanji is clinging. "The water flows up Reverse Mountain! Those ships are sailing right in front of the entry point right now."

"How long?" Luffy asks.

"The wind's coming off the Red Line," Nami tells him. "Just after dawn, it'll switch and start blowing the other way. If they don't clear off before that happens, they'll get pushed into the rocks. Just a few hours."

"So it's a Mystery Wind..." you hear Luffy mutter in the background.

"Can we target one of the ships and break through?" you ask.

"Maybe one," Zoro says. "But we'd have to cause enough chaos so they don't board."

"They won't miss with cannons. Not at close range," Sanji calls down. "So we have to defend the Merry throughout. And if other ships close in, or spot or shoot while we're fighting..."

"It'd might be challenging," Zoro says with a grin.

"The Merry will be shot to spinters!" Usopp calls down from the crow's nest, indicating his opinion of Zoro's "challenging".

You look at Luffy, as does everyone else on the deck. He's wearing an uncharacteristically serious face and a slight frown.

"Turn us around," he says, just loud enough for all of you to barely hear. His voice a little lower than normal. Is he angry or serious? You've never seen this side of Luffy before.

"We'll come back tomorrow," Luffy shouts a little louder and more enthusiastically. As if to punctuate this, there's another row of flashes on the horizon, followed by the boom of cannonfire as the marines fire another half-blind volley. Sanji jerks his head towards the noise, body tensing to spring from the mast and kick down another cannonball.

Nami wastes no time in taking control.

"Luffy, Sanji, keep defending the ship. Usopp, try to track them! Zoro, the sails! Taylor, get the rudder!"

You scamper for the wheelhouse.

"Hard port!" Nami orders from the deck above.

You can feel the ship leaning into the waves as you haul the tiller to the left. There's a rigging system that makes sure the tiller and the rudder turn the same direction. A tense few seconds later, you hear the wind catch the sail and feel the Merry surge ahead. Around the ship, half a dozen splashes echo as the cannonballs are deflected or miss.

"Midships!" Nami shouts. You center the rudder. By your reckoning, you've made a 130 degree turn, and are now heading almost directly away from the Red Line, hoping to catch maximum speed at a slight angle along the direction of the wind. You unfortunately can't see anything from your position at the tiller, the door is propped open and there are portholes on either side, but all you know is the pursuing ships are behind you.

A few tense moments pass while you're completely blind to what's happening above.

"Nami! Why are they gaining on us?" Usopp calls down from the crow's nest.

Nami lets out a very unladylike curse. You glance at the portholes. You can't see anything from here.

"Damnit, I'm blind down here," you mutter to yourself.

"Go ahead," someone says from the door.

Luffy's standing outside the door to the wheelhouse/kitchen. He stretches a hand behind him, grabbing the rudder and holding it as steady as you are, while still standing on the deck outside.

"I'll take care of this," he tells you. "Go!"

You make a split second choice, and dash out onto the deck, grabbing the banister with one hand and flipping yourself up to the navigator's deck.

Nami is hanging off the side rail, turned half-backwards, peering out into the darkness.

"Momentum," she mutters.

"What about?" you ask.

"They're against the current," she says to you. "But they have momentum. They must have started moving forward the moment they saw us. Big ships catch more sail than little ones, even if the little ones catch less current. And they've been full sail for longer. Look."

You stride to the rear of the ship and look out over the ocean behind you. In six places, little lights are appearing, as the marines light lanterns now that the element of surprise is gone. You note that one ship is missing, still somewhere in the dark. Smoker's, you think.

A couple of them have picked up lantern spotlights, large lanterns with a reflective backing and a single opening for the light. As they sweep in your direction, you hear bullets whiz overhead, and some of them drop and tumble to the side. Usopp must be shooting the marines carrying them. The distance is enough that the Merry won't really be fully illuminated if caught, but Usopp doesn't seem to be taking any chances. He's shooting around each spotlight and still hitting those carrying them, which is kind of amazing.

Nami's right. The ships on the outside of the crescent are accelerating away from their counterparts closer to Reverse Mountain, and towards you. Is that...because the Reverse Mountain current is less strong on the outside? You think that makes sense. Nevertheless, at this rate, you're going to be caught and surrounded. The enemy commander seems to know his seamanship.

There's another flash of light. This time you see some of the smoke from the barrels. Kishi-ko slides from its shoulder holster as you tense, listening for the whistle of cannonballs or any reflection from the light.

There!

Kishi-ko snaps upward, and you leap onto the roof to the aft of the tangerine trees, bracing yourself and concentrating hard. Musashi's lessons echo in your mind, and you draw on what inner conviction you have.

This is the ship that carries your crew's dreams.

You will defend it!

You swing upwards, intending to bisect the cannonball in two.

And...

Your arms are wrenched down as the cannonball hits your sword, metal vibrating like crazy as Kishi-ko bounces off your target. Your forward knee is slammed into the roof, pushing you off balance as you stumble. The cannonball deflects upwards in a lazy arc, maybe a mere ten degrees from its original, passing within a foot of you with a whistle, skimming the branches of one of Nami's trees, before arcing forward over one of the Merry's railings near the bow. It shaves a tiny dent in the top of the rail and showers the sea with splinters. There's a splash in the water in front of the ship.

"So what do we do?" you ask Nami below you as you struggle to your feet, shaking off the jolt to your arms. No damage to your sword, but it was close. Cutting cannonballs in two is beyond you right now, but you think if you swing differently you can deflect them.

Sanji drops to the deck beside Nami. There's a splash as a cannonball hits the water on the starboard side. He shakes out his leg, turning to the two of you.

"We can't keep this up," he comments. "Any ideas?"

"We can outrun those ships caught in the current," Nami says. "But we have to deal with one of those two." She gestures to the two that are slowly catching you to either flank. In the distance you can hear the shouts of the marines on board and... the rattle of chains?

"We can take one ship," Zoro says, appearing from behind you as he sheathes two of his katanas. "Can you get us in close?"

"South or North?" Nami asks.

To the South, the Marine ship is farther back, and it gives you more time to deal with it or slip past in front of it. But if you take it down, the rest of the fleet will drive you towards the Calm Belt. If you can't outrun them before you're forced to turn away, you'll have to fight all of them, and it won't be pretty.

To the North, the Marine ship is a fair bit farther ahead, and you'll have to cut behind it if you go that way. It might manage to delay you for longer. But beyond it is open ocean. The question is, can you make it past before the rest catch up?

Or... Nami didn't mention it, but the Merry should be picking up speed. Maybe you can avoid both ships in the dark and just outrun everyone? Is there a reason she didn't suggest this?

"Sou-" "Nor-" Zoro and Sanji speak at the same time, then turn to glare at each other.

"Oy, do you even know which way South is?" Sanji snarls.

Zoro merely frowns, "And what does that have to do with anything?"

Nami grabs them both and smacks their heads together, an impressive display of strength and reflexes for someone who isn't a primary combatant.

"Taylor, what do you think will be easier?" she asks you.

Spoiler: Rolls

The next update will cover the rest of this short encounter. No training actions.

Active Projects: Learn Home Improvement & Basic Trades (-1 Action / Day, 7/8 to Completion), Learn Disguise (-1 Action / Day, 2/6 to Completion), Superhero Prep (-2 Actions / Day, 4/12 to Completion)

Bet: Saturday, January 1, 2011. Late evening, no training actions available.

Mayim: Friday, May 13, 1532. Late evening, no training actions availabl2.5 Ambush at Reverse Mountain 3 / Warship Island?

"Open ocean," you respond. It's obviously the better choice. No complications.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at you, while Sanji and Nami nod.

"All right!" Luffy shouts from the main deck, having overheard your discussion. "Escape to the North!"

With orders from your captain, Nami sets a course 35 degrees North of East, enough to go full speed along with the wind. There's a tense three minutes as the lights of the marine ship to the North drift closer. You've outpaced the cannons of the other ships. Usopp's stopped shooting too, and scrambles down the rigging.

"Do we have a plan?" he asks nervously. He glances at Luffy first, who looks bored, then at Sanji who shrugs, and Zoro, who doesn't express anything. Finally, he looks at Nami, who turns to look at you.

"Uh," you say eloquently, "beat them up?"

Nami sighs and facepalms as Usopp's eyes go wide.

"Well," you say, "um, we have to stop them from chasing us, right?"

Your attempt at damage control seems to work, as Usopp and Nami and Sanji are hanging onto your every word.

"And that means disabling their ship, which means we hit their masts or their rudder, right?"

Your voice goes lower as you approach the enemy ship from behind, trying to make sure they don't hear you approaching. The three of them lean in closer to hear you, but Luffy isn't listening, and Zoro is staring off into the distance in front of the Merry, squinting.

"But we also have to protect the Merry, so stop them from shooting cannons, and make sure no one gets on board."

You're less than 200 feet away now. You're going to cross less than ten feet behind them. They're sweeping spotlights in front and to starboard, where you would have been if you hadn't changed course...

"If we catch them by surprise and get onto the deck, um, not you two," you say, pointing at Usopp and Nami, "but if a few of us do that, while the rest make sure the Merry doesn't get..."

There's a distinct rattle of chains from right in front of the Merry. You snap your head upwards, and Usopp, Nami, and Sanji both follow your gaze. Zoro is already looking that way, a frown on his face. He's seconds faster to react than the rest of you. Luffy is...

...missing?!!!

But there's no time to worry about that.

"Hard starboard!" Zoro shouts, all pretense of stealth forgotten. He shoves Sanji into the wheelhouse door, and Sanji falls on the tiller, pushing it to the right. In the same movement, Zoro draws all three swords, their blades black in the darkness, and leaps towards the prow of the ship.

As the Merry begins to turn and the shouts of the marines grow suddenly loud and frantic, you see it. Two chains sprawling out of the darkness behind the enemy ship, trailing out of its side, just above deck level for the Merry. Shit! If you can't avoid them, they'll shear the Merry's mast right off!

Slowly, agonizingly, the Merry turns. You run to the railing and stand on the port side, Kishi-ko at the ready, but you have no idea what to do. You can't cut steel chains. Fifteen seconds is too long to transform to fishman, and even then...

Zoro leaps off the figurehead, soaring over the ocean a massive distance. He delivers a mighty three-sword blow to the chain, which bends backwards from the force, but is unbroken. As he lands on the chains themselves, he delivers a second slash as he jumps back to no effect. Cutting them seems beyond either of you.

Fifty feet, now. Zoro lands on the ram figurehead, resetting his stance and sheathing his swords, Iaido training at work. Sanji appears beside you, a cigarette in his mouth. Evidently someone else must be manning the tiller.

"Block it," you say quietly. Will that actually work?

"We block it, push it back," you say loudly and quickly, a desperate plan falling into place. "The Merry needs an extra ten feet."

There's no time to elaborate on your plan farther. You'll worry about the ship full of marines later.

Zoro nods, the idea of blocking and pushing back half a mile of chain with only swords, arm strength, and your ship for footing, apparently not daunting in the least. Sanji glances at the two of you, and you think you hear him make a quick noise of disapproval, before he runs and leaps to the looming marine ship.

Everything seems to fall into place in slow motion. Zoro will block at the front as the Merry heads inwards. The chain will bend along its length, hopefully enough to avoid the mast and cabins. You'll block at the rear as the Merry turns outwards. Simple, really. You try not to think about the amount of force involved...

You take the stairs up to the rear deck in a single bound, skidding to a halt and readying Kishi-ko. You can see Zoro bracing his stance next to the figurehead.

And then in an instant, the chains are upon him. There's a thump of metal on metal and a horrific grinding noise as all three swords are crossed in a powerful guard. Zoro takes a full step back, setting himself against them. There are no actual sparks, but you feel that there ought to be as the links of chain fly past Zoro's guard. The chains bend slightly, then Zoro's feet slide back. He grits his teeth and somehow digs into the deck, the wooden planks splintering at his feat as he leans into the block. The Merry continues to turn.

Then it's your turn. You raise Kishi-Ko and cross it in front of you, plant your feet, and meet the onrushing chain with the sword held in one hand, and the other braced on the flat of the blade. You can hear the screech of metal in two places as both Zoro and you strain against the weight and force of your ship. You will yourself to stand fast, to anchor yourself to the deck, and your sword to your hands. Drawing on Musashi's lessons, you deliberately bring up every bad memory you have. Mom, Emma, Dad, the Naughty Hurrah. This is not your first trial, and it will not be your last.

There's a booming noise from above, and several things splash down into the water ahead of the ship, but you can't pay attention to them.

The Merry continues to turn. Halfway now. Zoro's forced to take another step back, slamming his foot into the deck and making an indent, as if he could plant it straight through. You're pressed back against the wall of the wheelhouse, but you hold your sword fast in front of you. This won't be enough. Zoro's still being driven back, the chains are almost at the mast, and you need to be able to move to stop them shearing off the back of the cabin.

And then something unexpected happens. The Merry starts to tilt, the upper deck where you're standing leaning away from the chains even as the lower half leans below them. You're able to push yourself to your feet, taking the deliberate few steps to the back corner of the deck. The grind of metal intensifies as the Merry finally turns away. Almost there!

And then suddenly, it's over. The chains slacken as the Merry pulls away. They retreat into the darkness behind your ship and you let the arm holding Kishi-ko fall limply to your side. Sweat pours down your face and soaks your clothes. Your arms and legs ache like you just wrestled an elephant, and... tears? ...dribble down your face.

But the Merry survived. And you still have a battle to fight. The marine ship looms not fifteen feet to the left, slightly in front of you. From the deck, there's a shout, then a whole cannon falls into the water with a mighty splash. You see a black leg being withdrawn from above. Sanji's work.

From below, you can't quite see what mechanism connects the chains to the marine ship, but the other end must go back all the way to the other ships? That's kind of insane, but you suppose their plan was to encircle you with the chains and drive you in...into Smoker's ship?

Eight marines go flying off the main deck. Luffy? Seven of them fly over the front deck of the Merry and into the water beyond. One bounces off the back of the Merry's sail, and as you walk, you casually grab him out of the air and fling him towards his comrades. He gives an "ooff" as you do so. Good.

"I'll deal with the chain," you decide, shouting to Zoro who's sheathing his swords on the foredeck, just as winded as you are. "Can you get the mast?"

Without even waiting to acknowledge, Zoro crouches then leaps upwards, bouncing from the deck, pushing off the Merry's mast to hang midair between the ships as he draws a sword in each hand. You drop Kishi-ko on the deck and jump over Merry's railing onto the chain, balancing precariously for a second before finding your footing and running along it to its source. You could go for the rudder instead, jamming it to run in circles and making the entire chain plan fall apart, but this should be faster and simpler.

The marine ship's deck is covered with the unconscious bodies of her crew. Lit and unlit lanterns dot it, tiny pools of light and fire casting shadows of all sizes, making it impossible to tell who is fighting where without listening carefully. You hear shouting and the pounding of boots towards the front of the ship, and every few seconds someone's shadow darts through your vision, but this half of the deck is clear right now.

Instead you follow the chain in towards the cabin, drawing Kerimakureisho and readying it. There's a small opening that the chain comes out of. Maybe you could squeeze through. Instead, three lightning-fast strokes with the scimitar carve a person-sized hole in the wooden planks, and you step inside.

Six marines turn in surprise at your entrance, but you're upon them even as they draw their weapons. Your sword flickers and three half-drawn marine cutlasses go flying. Then you're in between them, sweeping all three swordsmen off their feet with a low swing. One marine gets out a nasty-looking nightstick, but before he can even lunge, it's plucked from his hands too and he's sent sprawling. A fifth swings at you with what appears to be an oversized claw hammer, but you catch the hammer's handle with your free hand and deflect the entire weapon, marine and all, into the one of the walls.

The last marine is seated at a table with a complicated machine and a den-den mushi on it, and merely sits in shock, mouth gaping farther open as you ram the pommel of your scimitar into his forehead, knocking him out cold.

Room clear, you turn your attention to the gear mechanism in the middle. It seems to regulate the chain, feeding it out as the distance to other ships increases. You suppose you could remove the regulator and let the chain drop into the sea. Seems a bit too fancy, though.

Taking a page from the other Straw Hats, you focus your swordsmanship as best you can and slash up the wooden beams holding the machine to the ship. There's a long creak as the supports give way, and the entire mechanism is pulled out the opening you came in, tearing a massive chunk out of the ship's railing and hitting the water with a mighty splash. You glance at the den-den mushi table, tuck the snail and the machine it's attached to under your free arm as an afterthought, and step out of the now enlarged hole.

Immediately, you have to dodge the ship's falling mast. Well, looks like everyone came through without surprises.

"Luffy! Everyone! Retreat!" you shout at the top of your lungs. Below you, the Merry cuts behind the disabled marine ship, now without any chains to block her way. You fall onto her deck, landing with a roll and dropping your stolen cargo. The den-den mushi lets out a moan, apparently displeased with the rough handling.

"Taylor! Can you scout?" Nami shouts to you.

Carrying the momentum of your roll forward, you turn it into a run, leaping off the other side of the ship and transforming into an albatross, using your momentum to take to the air. You corkscrew upwards as quickly as you can, surveying the battlefield from above.

Now that they've lit fires, seeing the ships up here is much easier. The other five lit marine ships are starting to turn towards the fight, but you're going to outrun them. You can see four sets of chains glimmering between the remaining ships. Smoker's ship is... you can't really tell. There are several gray blurs that could be dark ships, or just waves or debris. Hopefully he's far behind.

The disabled ship is drifting now, and you see Luffy making a bridge with his arms that Sanji and Zoro run across. The marines pitched overboard are slowly rescuing each other, and the ones on the deck are beating out the fires. There's even a lifeboat.

At that, you do a double take. In the little rowboat isn't a marine, but what looks like a child in a yellow dress and white cap. You can't quite tell in the dim light. He or she seems to be heaving with all their might on the oars, the lifeboat pointed away from the marine ship. What the heck.

You dive down, skimming the Merry and shout "Clear! We're faster!" to Nami, who waves at you.

"Checking something!" you call over your wing. Luffy runs to the side of the Merry and looks in the direction you're flying.

It really is a little girl. She's dressed in a mustard-colored dress and white pointed cap, both trimmed with red bands and white circles. Her messy blond hair is done in a single braid and tied with a green bow. She looks tired and dirty, but is rowing away from the marine ship with all her might. You fly downwards, trying to land on the prow of the rowboat. You teeter a bit as you do, but manage to catch your balance, and perch there looking down at her.

What do you do now? This is a weird situation, and you didn't think this far ahead.

Feeling the weight of her boat change, the girl turns to look at you. Her expression changes from grim to slightly hopeful.

"Ah, miss albatross, do you know the way to land? I need to get away..." she asks in a whisper, as if the marines are going to hear her over the shouts and the sounds of the fire and waves.

...does she regularly talk to animals?

"I can bring you to my ship," you say tentatively, not sure what to do in this situation.

The child's eyes widen in surprise.

"Tayylorr!"

Suddenly, a hand sweeps over your shoulder. You barely have time to shift to human and grab the girl protectively before Luffy snags you both and drags you back to the Merry, sending Zoro crashing into Nami's tangerine trees in the process.

"What the heck?" Luffy says. "I thought Taylor saw a fish..."

"WHY?" Usopp says a little too forcefully, shaking Luffy slightly.

"A kid?" Sanji helpfully points out.

"Whaaaaaa?!" the girl cries in shock.

"Ah, that's my captain, Monkey D. Luffy," you say, struggling to your feet, the girl still clutched in your arms protectively. "That's Sanji, Usopp, Zoro, and Nami. I'm Taylor. Welcome to the Going Merry."

"Uh, it's Apis," she says, twisting her head around in your arms and taking in the crew you've pointed out and the ship's deck as best she can in the dark. You set her down on the deck and she runs to the side, looking out wide-eyed to where you can see the crippled marine ship fading into the dark.

"Apis, were you running from the marines?" Nami asks her, walking to stand next to her.

"Mmm," Apis says noncommittally, although she doesn't fool anyone. That's basically a yes.

As Nami makes small talk with Apis, you think over the situation. Surely the marines aren't keeping harmless children prisoners now? No, wait, some of them are really terrible people. But the rank and file? The treatment of Rika in Shell Town comes to mind. Not only that, but people like Smoker wouldn't stand for it. Especially not Smoker.

"Anyway, where are you from, Apis?" Usopp asks, drawing your attention back to the conversation.

"Oh! I'm from Warship Island," Apis tells him with a smile.

"Warship Island?" Sanji says. "Isn't that pretty close?"

"I think so," Nami says, steering Apis into the kitchen. "Let me find a map."

As Nami locates Warship Island, Apis looks around the kitchen uncertainly.

"Here! It's less than a day from here," Nami says, pointing to the location.

"Um, that is, if you run into a ship going that way..." Apis says uncertainly.

"That's easy. We can take you there on my pirate ship!" Luffy says with a grin.

You look over at Luffy at that proclamation in surprise, and most of the crew does too. He has a big heart, if he's willing to put off his dream to help someone he just met.

"WHAT!?" the girl yells far louder than any child should be able to. "PIRATES?!"

As Usopp and Nami try to calm the girl down, you sigh and think. It definitely seems like the right thing to do to help Apis get home. But everyone was so excited over reaching the Grand Line, and you could do Reverse Mountain in the morning if you weren't delayed.

Spoiler: rolls and gains