The Floating Quarter's canals shimmered under the pallid moon, their bubble-stone foundations humming a low, resonant tune that made Jelly's gelatinous body vibrate like a struck tambourine. "Bloop! It's like the ground is singing!" he giggled, bouncing ahead of Benn Beckman and Gab. His azure form left sticky, glittering footprints on the cobblestones, which hissed faintly as they dissolved into the algae-slick cracks.
Benn trudged behind, his cigarette's ember cutting through the swamp's sulfurous haze. "Keep bouncing, Jelly. You're scaring the rats."
"But rats are friends!" Jelly protested, morphing his hand into a wobbly cat paw to wave at a sewer grate. A pair of glowing eyes blinked back before retreating into the murk.
Gab chuckled, adjusting the medical kit slung over his shoulder—a gift from Hongo, its leather stained with rum and questionable ointments. "Don't encourage him, Beck. Remember when he tried to adopt that crab."
Their banter was cut short by a sudden swoop of feathers. A jazz-mimic parrot, its plumage streaked neon pink and gold, dive-bombed Benn's shoulder. The bird's talons gripped his coat like a vice, its beak snapping to the rhythm of a sea shanty.
"Squawk! Granny calls! Granny calls!" it screeched, its voice a garbled mix of Creole and Navel drill chants.
Jelly gasped, quivering into a blobby starfish shape. "Talking bird! Can we keep it? Can we? Canwecanwe—?"
Benn grimaced, eyeing the parrot. Its left wing was tattooed with a World Government cipher—a relic from some long-dead spy. "Hell no. Last thing we need's a feathery snitch."
The parrot pecked his forehead sharply. "Snitch yourself, smoky! Follow!" It flapped into the air, trailing bioluminescent pollen from its wings.
Gab raised an eyebrow. "Think Shanks'll mind a detour?"
Benn lit a fresh cigarette, the match's flare reflecting in the canals below, where zombified thralls poled gondolas filled with smuggled Soul-Sugar. "Granny's got a nose for trouble. Better bite before it bites us."
They followed the parrot into a labyrinth of leaning townhouses, their balconies draped with rotting strings of party beads and voodoo gris-gris bags. The air thickened with the scent of cayenne and decay, and Jelly's glow brightened nervously, casting shifting blue shadows on walls graffitied with Krewe du Roi slogans: "Dance Fast, Bury Slow."
"Ooh! Shiny!" Jelly lunged toward a stall selling cursed doubloons, his arm stretching into a gelatinous lasso. Benn snagged him by the "waist"—a dubious concept with Jelly—and yanked him back.
"Focus."
"Bloop… Okay, okay!"
The parrot led them to a dead-end alley where Granny Zéphyrine perched atop her whalebone stilts, her skeletal mask—carved from Saint Lysander's shattered visage—tilted at a mocking angle. Beneath her, a pack of street urchins played dice with alligator teeth.
"Took you long enough, mes petits," she croaked, her voice like a rusted hinge. "Even the rats gossip faster."
Benn blew a smoke ring toward her mask. "What's the crisis? Marines? Soul-Sugar shortage?"
Granny's laugh rattled the moth-eaten carnival feathers draped over her shoulders. "Worse. Boredom." She tossed a bone die to the urchins, who scattered like minnows. "But since you're here…
The orphanage was a ramshackle hive of salvaged ship wood and stolen Marine flags, its walls papered with crayon maps of the Grand Line and ceiling strung with party beads that clattered like rain in the bayou breeze. Granny Zéphyrine shoved open the door, releasing a tide of barefoot children who surged toward Benn and Gab with the fervor of a New World storm.
"Captain Shanks' crew!" squealed a girl with an eyepatch made of bottle caps. "Did you fight a dragon? Do you have a dragon tooth?!"
"Better—two dragons!" Jelly blurted, inflating his arm into a wobbly serpent shape. The kids shrieked, scrambling to poke its gelatinous fangs.
Benn sidestepped a toddler brandishing a stick-sword, his cigarette dangling precariously. "No dragons. No teeth. Move."
Gab chuckled, crouching to inspect a boy's "treasure"—a rusted Marine compass filled with Soul-Sugar crystals. "Careful, mate. That's worth more than your toes."
Granny cackled, her stilts clicking against the floorboards stained with decades of gumbo spills. "Allez, heroes. Earn your fan club."
Benn grimaced as a gang of urchins latched onto his coat, their grubby fingers probing for hidden weapons. "Where's Yasopp? Does he really shoot the wings off flies?"
"Only the annoying ones," Benn grunted, extracting a tiny hand from his pistol holster.
Jelly, now a human trampoline, bounced a squealing kid toward the rafters. "Benn's super fun at parties! He does magic tricks—watch!" He yanked Benn's sleeve, "accidentally" triggering a hidden flask. Rum splashed onto the floor, and the kids erupted in awe.
"Magic!"
"That's liquor, you little terrors—"
Granny seized Benn's arm, her grip surprisingly steel. "Kitchen. Now."
Gab shot him a sympathetic smirk. "Don't worry, Beck. I'll tell 'em you cried during Binks' Sake."
The kitchen was a claustrophobic cave of cast-iron pots and dried ghost peppers, the air heavy with thyme and the tang of betrayal. A cauldron simmered over a firepit, its contents bubbling with a murky stew that smelled suspiciously of Tante Delphine's memory-gumbo. Granny slumped into a chair carved from a ship's figurehead—a mermaid with a Marine's face.
"Two troubles," she rasped, tossing a bone die into the flames. It cracked, revealing a hollow center filled with blackened sugar. "First: Soul-Sugar's thicker than gator guts in the marshes. New players—Bayou's Reckoning. They're slick. No flags, no faces. Just… shadows."
Benn leaned against a shelf of jarred frog eyes, their preserved stares following him. "Shadows don't smuggle. They've got allies."
"Oui. But these shadows?" She flicked a vial of glowing algae, its light morphing into a serpentine symbol—a coiling river with fangs. "They're using the old ways. Voodoo marks on crates. Sacrifices in the bayou. Delphine's seen the signs."
Gab paled. "Sacrifices? Like… people?"
"Like hope," Granny spat. "Soul-Sugar's got a new recipe. Tastes like… forgotten things."
Benn's jaw tightened. "And the second trouble?"
Granny's mask tilted, its hollow eyes reflecting the fire. "Tante Delphine wants words. Tonight. At the bone tree."
Benn groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That hag's 'words' always end with someone cursed."
"Respect your elders!" Granny thwacked his shin with her stilt. "She's got a lead on your shadows. And you—" She jabbed a bony finger at Gab, "—owe her for the rotfoot tincture. My knees didn't brew it."
Outside, Jelly's laughter echoed as he morphed into a wobbly slide. A kid's voice piped up: "Do Shanks next! Do Shanks!"
Benn ground his cigarette into a turtle shell ashtray. "Fine. But if she turns me into a frog—"
"You'll ribbit prettier than most," Gab smirked.
Granny's cackle chased them back into the chaos, where Jelly was now a human pinata, candy raining from his gelatinous pores. The kids chanted his name, their sticky hands glowing faintly from bioluminescent algae—innocence clinging to a city rotting at its edges.
As Benn ducked into the twilight, Gab muttered, "Since when do we do charity?"
"Since it's cheaper than bribes," Benn said, though his gaze lingered on a girl drawing Shanks' jolly roger in the dirt, her tongue poked out in concentration.
Somewhere in the bayou, the bone tree waited, its branches heavy with the weight of secrets. And somewhere deeper, Bayou's Reckoning coiled, ready to strike.
*****
La Maison Rouge throbbed with the dissonant harmony of pirate shanties and clinking rum glasses, its walls sweating absinthe and old secrets. Shanks lounged at a table carved from a Marine warship's hull, his boots propped on a barrel of Dawnbreaker Rum as Lucky Roux devoured a gator-tail po'boy with enough gusto to shake the chandelier—a relic of Saint Lysander's reign, its crystals now strung with voodoo beads and dried kelp. Marya sat rigidly beside Mihawk, her fingers tracing the cursed veins on her arm, while Yasopp regaled Limejuice with a heavily exaggerated tale of an "epic duel" with a Sea King.
"—and then the kid yawned," Yasopp crowed, sloshing rum onto the table. "Sea King got so offended, it joined his crew!"
Mihawk sipped his wine—a vintage older than the island itself—and grimaced. "Swill."
"Swill's the point," Shanks grinned, toasting the room. "To rot and—"
A cold draft slithered through the brothel, snuffing candles and silencing the jazz parrot mid-squawk. The air thickened with the scent of saltwater and funeral lilies.
"Maaaaryaaaa…"
The voice oozed from the walls, spectral and saccharine. A translucent figure materialized above the bar—Lady Evangeline Desmarets, the brothel's long-dead madam, her tattered ball gown dripping phantom absinthe. The crew froze, except Shanks, who chuckled into his drink.
"Ah, right on cue! Moxy, you redecorate?"
Moxy-Rouge rolled her eyes, her doll Petit Roi hissing at the spirit. "She's your fan, not mine."
Evangeline drifted toward Marya, her lace veil fluttering to reveal a glimpse of bone beneath. "Such… familiar eyes," she crooned, reaching a skeletal hand toward Marya's face. "You smell of the Mist… and her."
Marya stood abruptly, her chair screeching against the floorboards. "I'm leaving."
"Aw, c'mon!" Shanks waved his rum toward the spirit. "She's just lonely!"
Mihawk set down his glass, the wine inside now swirling with blackened sediment. "The vintage has… deteriorated." He rose, Yoru's hilt glinting. "I'll ensure the child doesn't get lost."
"Child?" Marya shot him a venomous look but stormed out, Eternal Eclipse's sheath smacking the doorframe.
Outside, the Floating Quarter's bubble-stone canals pulsed faintly, their glow muted by the lingering spectral chill. Marya spotted Building Snake slinking down an alley, his arms laden with Gadget's discarded inventions—a spatula-rocket, a colander helmet, and a smoking waffle iron.
"He went that way," Building Snake muttered, nodding toward a trail of maple-scented smoke curling above the rooftops. "Took a left at the screaming cypress."
Mihawk raised an eyebrow. "A what?"
Before Snake could answer, a rocket-sled erupted from a nearby bakery, its waffle-iron wings shredding croissants into a buttery blizzard. Atop it, Gadget snored loudly, goggles askew, shouting, "THE PANCAKE PARACHUTE DEMANDS SYRUP!"
Marya pinched the bridge of her nose. "…This is your idea of genius?"
Mihawk stepped over a puddle of glowing algae. "Genius is… subjective."
Back at La Maison Rouge, Shanks' laughter shook the rafters as Evangeline wailed, her form dissolving into mist. "Where'd she go?!"
Moxy-Rouge snatched his rum. "Chasing better company. You—" She flicked a voodoo bead at him, "—owe me a conversation. Later."
"Can't wait!" Shanks beamed, though his eyes flickered toward the door—where Marya and Mihawk vanished into the neon haze, trailing a maniac inventor and the promise of chaos.
The crash site reeked of burnt sugar and swamp musk. Gadget's rocket-sled lay crumpled against a cypress ghoul, its waffle-iron wings bent into abstract art, while maple-scented smoke coiled into the air like syrup ghosts. Bioluminescent fireflies swarmed the wreckage, their glow turning the scene into a flickering carnival of chaos.
Marya stepped over a smoldering spatula-rocket, her boots squelching in algae-choked mud. The veins on her arms pulsed faintly, reacting to the bayou's cursed hum. This place is alive, she thought, and it's watching.
Mihawk lingered a pace behind, Yoru's tip brushing the ground, carving a thin line in the muck. "You're unsettled," he observed, his voice as sharp as his blade.
She didn't turn. "The air here is… loud."
"Loud?"
"It hisses. Like static." She flicked a cypress leaf from her sleeve—it curled into a skeletal fist before dissolving.
Mihawk's gaze swept the marsh, where shadows slithered just beyond the fireflies' reach. "Hm. A suitable metaphor."
A groan erupted from the wreckage. Gadget emerged, wild-haired and goggle-eyed, his pajamas singed and streaked with syrup. "By the Holy Spatula! Did I… did I invent a time machine again?!"
Building Snake sighed, hoisting a colander helmet off Gadget's head. "Just a crash. Again. Red Hair's got a job for you."
Gadget's eyes lit up, his pupils reflecting the fireflies' dance. "Shanks?! Is he here? Does he need a submarine-chocolate-fusion reactor?! I've got blueprints!" He yanked a scroll from his pocket—unfurling to reveal doodles of cats wearing hats.
Marya stepped forward, her shadow stretching long and jagged in the bioluminescent haze. "I need my submarine's engine repaired. I'm told you're… capable."
Gadget blinked, then beamed. "Capable? I've been called a 'lunatic,' a 'menace,' and once, 'why is there a squid in my coffee?'—but capable? That's new!" He tripped over a rocket fragment, caught himself on Mihawk's cloak, and froze. "…You're very pointy."
Mihawk flicked his cloak free. "Fix the engine. Then leave."
"Fix? FIX?!" Gadget scrambled upright, rummaging through his toolbelt. "Fixation is the essence of invention! Why, just last week, I fixed a toaster into a—"
"A flamethrower. It exploded," Building Snake interjected, tossing Gadget a wrench. "Focus."
Marya's jaw tightened as Gadget prattled on, his hands a blur of gears and seaweed-wire. The marsh's static grew louder, vibrating in her molars. She glanced at the cypress ghoul, its bark split into a scream. Rot breeds strength, Mihawk had said. But all she felt was the Void's itch, gnawing at her resolve.
Gadget paused, tilting his head. "You've got that look."
"What look?"
"The 'I'm-trying-not-to-stab-something' look. Common among geniuses!" He tapped his temple. "Don't worry—I'll have your sub purring like a kitten in a… uh… kitten factory!"
Mihawk's lip twitched—almost a smile.
As Gadget hummed a nursery rhyme and welded parts with a seaweed torch, Building Snake sidled up to Marya. "He's better awake. Mostly."
Marya watched sparks fly, her reflection warping in Gadget's goggles. "Why does Shanks trust him?"
"Same reason he trusts anyone," Snake shrugged. "Bad jokes and worse liquor."
A sudden bang shook the marsh as Gadget's makeshift blowtorch backfired, engulfing a war-shell gator's fossil in flames. The creature's ancient ribs glowed like a lantern, casting fractured shadows that danced with the fireflies.
"Perfect!" Gadget crowed, wiping syrup-soot from his face. "Now, let's see this engine!"
Marya hesitated, then nodded. For the first time, something in the static clicked—a rhythm beneath the chaos.
Mihawk watched her, golden eyes unreadable. "Curious," he murmured, to no one but the marsh.