The bridge of the Dreadnought Thalassa thrummed with the low vibration of the singularity core, a deep pulse that resonated through the deck plates and into the bones of everyone standing. The main viewscreen dominated the forward wall, showing the dark water ahead, illuminated by the submarine's forward lights cutting through the murk. Outside, the pressure of the deep sea pressed against the hull, but inside, the crew gathered in their usual positions—some seated, some standing, all watching as Kushi Island's underwater geography unfolded on the screen.
Galit Varuna sat in the pilot's seat, his long neck curved forward, his emerald-green eyes tracking the sonar readings and the visual feed. His fingers didn't just move; they performed across the console, his restlessness born not from boredom, but from a hunger for a more aggressive burn than this cautious crawl through stone. Even as he ached to push the throttles, he maintained focus. The sea-green streaks in his cropped hair picked up the neon glow of the monitors as he flicked the ship onto its new heading
Aurélie Nakano Takeko occupied the copilot's seat, her silver hair loose over her shoulders, her dark eyes fixed on the secondary displays. Her hand rested on the throttle, ready to adjust their speed as the cave mouth grew larger on the screen. The small gold studs in her ears threw back sharp glints of brilliance, contrasting with the unnerving, motionless intensity of her gaze as she indexed every detail.
Atlas Acuta sat with his arms crossed, his rust-red fur bristling in the climate-controlled air. His blue sapphire eyes tracked the screen, then flicked to Galit. A smirk played at the corner of his mouth.
"Don't hit anything, noodle neck."
Galit's head whipped around, his long neck twisting in that fluid motion that always seemed to surprise people who forgot how flexible he was. His emerald eyes narrowed.
"Why don't you take a cat nap, and we'll wake you up when it's time to leave?" His voice carried a sharp edge, the kind of tone that said he was already thinking of a comeback before Atlas finished speaking. "Furball."
Atlas's jaw tightened. His nub flicked against the side of his seat. He opened his mouth—
Halia materialized in the center of the bridge, her silver-blue hair flowing as if caught in an underwater current, the bioluminescent streaks along her hair pulsing. Her oceanic eyes—deep blue shifting to aquamarine—swept across the crew before settling on Marya. Her elegant robe shifted with patterns of navigational charts, and her lower body faded into that luminous, ethereal tail.
"We are closing in on the approach vector." Her voice carried the formal courtesy of a librarian announcing the discovery of a rare manuscript. "Scans indicate a vessel is currently moored within the target vicinity."
Marya sat in the captain's chair, her leather jacket creaking as she shifted her weight. Her raven hair spilled down her back, and her golden eyes—hawk-like, unreadable—fixed on the screen. Nisshoku reclining against the armrest, the obsidian blade dark and still. She did not draw it. She did not need to.
"Will that be a problem?" Her voice held no emotion, just the flat curiosity of a woman assessing variables.
Halia's eyes flickered with streams of code, the patterns dancing across her irises like falling rain. She tilted her head, and the screen changed, displaying a three-dimensional diagram of the cavern ahead. The space opened wide, a vast chamber carved by centuries of water and volcanic activity. The sonar readings painted the walls in shades of blue and grey, and there, near the left wall, a small marker indicated the other vessel.
"The cavern is quite vast." Halia's hand gestured, and the diagram rotated, showing the scale of the space. "There is ample capacity for multiple large vessels. The moored ship does not obstruct our approach."
Charlie Leonard Wooley launched from his seat.
He lurched to his feet, fighting to keep his pith helmet centered, while a sudden brilliance flashed across his circular lenses, momentarily masking his eyes. His leather satchel swung against his hip, the contents rattling. He rushed toward the screen, his arms outstretched as if he wanted to embrace the image.
"Zoom in here." His finger jabbed at the screen, pointing at something near the cave wall. "There. That formation. Halia, zoom in."
Halia's brow furrowed—a rare crack in her composed expression. She complied, and the screen shifted, zooming in on a section of rock that, at first glance, looked like nothing more than a natural outcropping. But as the image sharpened, details emerged. Carved lines. Symmetrical shapes. An arched structure, half-hidden in the rockface, its entrance obscured by centuries of mineral deposits.
Jannali Bandler leaned forward in her seat, her hoop earrings swinging. Her brown eyes widened, and her drawl stretched the words into something almost reverent.
"Bloody hell. How did you even see that?"
Bianca Yvonne Clark flicked her wrist from the engineer's seat, where she had been hunched over a console with her magnifying goggles pushed up on her forehead. Her waist-length black hair escaped its messy bun in curling strands, and a pencil had materialized behind her ear at some point. Her grease-stained overalls hung open over a floral top.
"It's, like, his super power and stuff." She waved a hand toward Charlie. "If there is, like, something ancient, he is, like, going to find it. Every time. It's actually kind of creepy."
Charlie stood slack-jawed, his pith helmet tilted, his glasses sliding down his nose. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. Tears welled in his eyes—actual tears, glistening in the corners, threatening to spill down his cheeks.
"Is there any way for you to get more detail?" His voice cracked.
Halia's expression softened, just slightly. "This is all I can do for now. Once we have docked, I will be in more adequate range to accommodate your request."
Marya turned in her chair, her golden eyes fixing on Charlie. "What do you think it is?"
Charlie looked over his shoulder, his pith helmet clutched to his chest, his hands trembling. He pulled the helmet from his chest and bit the rim—actually bit it, his teeth pressing into the fabric. Tears dripped down his cheeks. He pulled the helmet away from his mouth, sniffled, and spoke in a voice thick with emotion.
"A dream come true."
Bianca rolled her eyes. "Like, really? Like, with everything we have like seen and whatever?"
Charlie sniffled again, louder this time. He straightened his shoulders, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and composed himself with visible effort. His voice steadied.
"This is different." He tucked the pith helmet under his arm. "I will need my equipment."
He rushed past the others, his boots pounding against the deck, the door sliding open and closed behind him.
Bō-Zak Kaminosukei watched him go, his pipe smoldering in his hand, his gold-flecked brown eyes tracking Charlie's retreat with lazy amusement. He took a long drag from his pipe, blew out a plume of smoke, and asked, "I take it this is a common occurrence?"
Aurélie whipped her head around from the copilot's seat, her silver hair swinging. Her expression held a mixture of fondness and exasperation. "Yes. He is very passionate."
Vesta Lavana jumped to her feet from her seat near the back of the bridge, her rainbow hair shifting through colors as she moved—pink to orange to yellow in the space of a heartbeat. Her eclectic outfit, all bold colors and asymmetrical cuts, beamed in the bridge's light.
"I can't wait to get outside!" She sprinted toward the door, her platform boots pounding against the deck.
Ember followed on her heels, her neon-pink space buns bouncing, her mismatched eyes—one icy blue, one gold—bright with something that might have been excitement or might have been manic energy. "I am coming too!"
Sanza Kaplan Figarland scrambled to his feet, his red hair messy, his small hands grabbing the armrest of his chair for balance. "Wait for me!"
Eliane Anđel rose with more grace, her silver ponytail swinging, her chef's jacket crisp and white. She adjusted the collar and followed at a more measured pace.
Jelly "Giggles" Squish bounced after them, his translucent blue body wobbling with every hop, his starry eyes wide with anticipation. His voice echoed down the hall, high and cheerful.
"Adventure! Bloop! Adventure!"
Sanza's voice trailed after them, explaining to no one in particular how he was looking forward to another island experience, how this one would be better than the last, how he was definitely going to find something interesting.
The door slid shut.
Silence settled over the bridge like a blanket.
Marya shook her head slightly, a small movement, almost imperceptible. Her lips pressed together, and something that might have been a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. She embraced the silence for a moment, then turned to Halia.
"What do we know about the other ship?"
The screen shifted, the diagram replaced by a more detailed image of the moored vessel. The ship sat low in the water, its hull dark, its sails furled. The resolution was grainy—Halia was working with limited sensor data—but the flag flying from its mast was unmistakable. A skull with horns. Crossbones beneath. The Jolly Roger of the Beasts.
Aurélie's voice cut through the quiet, focused and sharp. "That could be a problem."
Jannali cursed under her breath, the drawl making the words sound almost musical despite their roughness. "A bit."
Bō-Zak frowned, his pipe pausing halfway to his lips. "What's the issue?"
Aurélie turned in her seat to face him, her dark eyes holding his. "That is a Beast Pirates flag. Kaido's crew."
Atlas uncrossed his arms, leaning forward. "I thought they were disbanded. Their Emperor was overthrown. Wano fell."
Marya's voice came from the captain's chair, calm and measured. "That may be the case, but then what do his people do? And why are they here?"
Her golden eyes narrowed. She turned to Halia.
"Are there any people on that ship?"
Code streamed across Halia's eyes, the patterns dancing in rapid succession, too fast to follow. Her head tilted, and her voice came out flat, clinical in a way that had nothing to do with coldness and everything to do with processing information.
"I do not detect any life signs."
Bianca's brow furrowed. She pushed her goggles up from her forehead to her hair. "That's, like, really weird. Like, a whole ship with, like, no one on it? Like, where did they go?"
Bō-Zak sucked on his pipe, the ember glowing. He blew out a stream of smoke and shrugged. "Maybe they came here to hide. Or retire. This cave is secluded. The Navy wouldn't find it easily."
Galit's hands moved across the controls, adjusting their heading as the cave mouth grew larger on the screen. He glanced over his shoulder, his emerald eyes thoughtful.
"Or maybe they got stuck here when the Navy showed up and couldn't leave." His voice carried the weight of someone who had run that scenario in his head. "The blockade would trap anyone inside. They might have abandoned the ship and gone inland."
Marya tapped her fingers against the arm of her seat. The sound was soft, rhythmic, a counterpoint to the thrum of the engines. Her golden eyes fixed on the screen, on the abandoned ship, on the dark cave ahead.
"Take us in," she said. "Slowly. Quietly. And keep scanning for those life signs."
---
The submarine slid through the cave mouth like a shadow slipping through a doorway.
The passage narrowed around them, the walls pressing close, the sonar pinging off the rock in steady intervals. Water rushed past the hull, the sound muffled by the thick plating. The forward lights illuminated the cavern ahead, revealing a space that opened wider with every passing second.
The smell of the deep sea changed as they entered—the sharp salt of open water giving way to something older, something trapped. Wet stone. Mineral deposits. The faint, sweet scent of something that might have been ancient wood or might have been decay.
The submarine breached the surface.
Water streamed off the hull as it rose, the forward lights cutting through the darkness of the cavern. The space stretched above them, the ceiling lost in shadow, stalactites hanging like stone daggers. The walls glistened with moisture, veins of something dark running through the volcanic rock.
And there, to the port side, the Beast Pirates ship sat moored against a natural stone jetty.
The vessel was smaller than the submarine—a single-masted sloop, maybe, designed for speed rather than cargo. Its hull was dark, weathered, scarred by storms and battles. The sails hung slack, furled against the yardarm. The flag hung limp, the skull and horns barely visible.
No movement. No lights. No sound.
The submarine glided past the abandoned ship, the water lapping against both hulls in soft, rhythmic pulses. The crew watched from the bridge, their faces illuminated by the glow of the screens, their eyes tracking the dark vessel as it slid past.
Aurélie pointed toward a natural dock formation near the far wall of the cavern—a flat outcropping of volcanic rock that rose above the waterline, perfect for disembarkation. The submarine angled toward it, the engines shifting pitch, the vibration changing as they slowed.
"Perfect," Galit muttered, his hands moving across the controls. "We can dock there. Easy access to the shore."
The submarine settled against the rock, the hull scraping softly against the stone. The engines died. The bridge fell silent except for the drip of water and the distant echo of something moving in the darkness.
Marya rose from her chair, Nisshoku in her hand, her golden eyes fixed on the screen.
"Let's find out who left that ship behind."
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