The days that followed their departure from Alabasta were a blur of high-intensity research and the rhythmic swaying of the Going Merry as she cut through the Grand Line's unpredictable currents. For Ben, the schedule was grueling but rewarding. He split his time with clinical precision: half his day was spent submerged in the VR world with Chopper, wrestling with the final sequences of the Artificial Devil Fruit, and the other half was dedicated to his own secret projects—refining the technology that would ensure the crew's survival in the tumultuous years to come.
Inside the research room, the air was always thick with the hum of servers and the soft glow of holographic displays. Outside, the crew lived their lives with the boisterous, chaotic energy that defined them. But this morning, the atmosphere was different.
---
Breakfast had been the usual battlefield. Luffy had tried to steal Sanji's bacon, resulting in a swift kick to the head; Usopp was regaling anyone who would listen with a heavily embellished tale of how he "personally" scouted the desert ruins; and Nami was obsessively checking the Log Pose.
Once the plates were cleared, Ben stood up. "Meeting room. Now," he said, his voice carrying an weight that silenced the table. "We have things to discuss that concern the future of this crew."
The crew filed into the ship's dedicated meeting room. It was a sleek, modern space that felt out of place on a wooden caravel, dominated by a long, polished glass table that seemed to float in the center of the room. One by one, they took their seats:
Luffy, grinning with anticipation, perched on his chair like he was ready to spring into action.
Usopp and Chopper, sitting side-by-side, looking a mix of nervous and curious.
Nami and Robin, the intellectual pillars of the group, watched Ben with sharp, attentive eyes.
Vivi and Carue, the former princess looking regal yet anxious, her faithful duck standing tall behind her.
Mini Merry, the small girl, sat near the head of the table.
Sanji and Zoro, sitting as far apart as possible, though both were focused on Ben.
Dory and Brogy, the giants, sat facing each other.
Ben reached into a containment unit and pulled out the fruit they had recovered from the underground palace. It was a mesmerizing thing, swirling with colors that seemed to shift under the room's LED lighting, covered in the signature curly patterns of a Devil Fruit.
"For those who weren't there," Ben began, glancing at Vivi, Chopper, and the others, "Zoro managed to get himself spectacularly lost in the desert near Rain Dinners. In doing so, he stumbled into a buried palace—an ancient ruin that predates the current Alabasta kingdom."
Vivi leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the glass table. "An ancient palace... beneath the sands? I've lived in Alabasta my entire life and never heard even a whisper of such a place."
"It was meant to stay hidden, Vivi," Ben explained. "But more importantly, the Poneglyph we found there—the one Robin translated—gave us a name. A name tied to the very dawn of history."
Then Ben tells them all what Robin and he discussed.
"Joyboy," Robin whispered, her eyes dark with a hunger for knowledge. She turned to Ben. "The Poneglyph mentioned him specifically. Ben, you have... abilities. You see things others cannot. Can your sight reach back into the past? Can you tell us who this man was?"
The room went silent. Even Luffy stopped fidgeting. Ben leaned back, his fingers interlaced. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment, as if reading invisible lines of code in the air.
"I don't have the full picture," Ben said slowly, his voice dropping an octave. "My 'sight' is more about trajectories—where things are going based on where they've been. But I know this: Joyboy was a man born over nine hundred years ago. He came from a kingdom so advanced it would make our current world look like it's living in the stone age."
He paused, letting the weight of the centuries settle on the crew.
"He was the first man in the history of the sea to be called a 'Pirate.' He was a man of absolute freedom, and he left a promise behind that the world is still waiting for him to fulfill."
The crew was stunned. To think that the very concept of being a pirate started with a man from a lost, high-tech civilization 900 years ago was almost too much to process.
"Tell us more!" Usopp leaned in, his eyes wide. "What did he look like? Did he have a huge ship? Was he a giant?"
Ben shook his head with a small, knowing smile. "That's all I'm giving you. If I tell you everything now, it'll be a spoiler for the journey ahead. Some things are meant to be discovered, not told."
A collective groan went up from the table. Ussop pouted, crossing his arms. "Aw, come on, Ben! Just a little more!"
"No," Ben said firmly. "Now, onto the matter at hand. This Devil Fruit. It was found in the Nefertari ancestral ruins. It belongs to the Alabasta Royal family."
Sanji exhaled a cloud of smoke. "He's right. Since it's a legacy of the Nefertari line, Vivi-chan should be the one to decide its fate."
The crew murmured in agreement. All eyes turned to Vivi. She looked at the fruit—the shimmering, mysterious power that her ancestors had guarded for nearly a millennium.
"Ben," Vivi said, her voice steady despite her nerves. "You told us that something terrible is coming in two years. A storm that will swallow the world. Does this fruit... does it have a part to play in that?"
Ben nodded solemnly. "It does. Its power is tied to the 'Guardian Deity' mentioned in the texts. It's a Mythical Zoan, Vivi. A power of legend."
Vivi took a deep breath. "Then I'll eat it. I want to be strong enough to protect Alabasta—and all of you." She paused, looking down at her hands. "But Ben... the serum you gave me. I have wings now. I have increased strength and agility from the animal genes. Will the fruit conflict with that? Will it hurt me?"
"I won't let that happen," Ben promised. "I'll develop a neutralizing solution to safely extract the serum-based traits before you consume the fruit. It will be a clean slate for the transformation. I just need a little more time."
Vivi nodded, a look of relief washing over her. "I'll wait. I trust you, Ben."
"Meeting adjourned," Ben announced.
---
The afternoon was peaceful. On the deck, a high-stakes card game was underway. Luffy, Usopp, Dory, Brogy, and Carue were huddled around a crate, while Zoro leaned against the mast, occasionally throwing down a card with a bored expression.
Suddenly, the light began to fade.
It wasn't a cloud passing over the sun. It was a shadow—vast, jagged, and terrifyingly fast. It started as a small blotch on the cards in the middle of the crate and expanded outward until the entire deck of the Merry was plunged into an artificial twilight.
"Hey! Who turned out the lights?" Luffy complained, looking up.
His jaw dropped. His eyes literally bugged out of his head.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The ship's bell chimed thrice—Merry's automated warning system. "Warning: Massive object in vertical vicinity!"
Above them, a colossal galleon, its wood rotting and its sails tattered like the wings of a dying moth, was falling straight out of the sky. It was a ship from a bygone era, tumbling through the air with a deafening roar of rushing wind.
"SCREAM!" Usopp shrieked, his face turning a ghostly shade of white. "MERRY! ACCELERATE! FULL POWER! MOVE US OUT OF THE DROP ZONE!"
The Merry's engines roared to life. The ship jerked forward with such violent force that everyone on deck was sent sprawling. Nami, Sanji, and Robin, who had been coming up the hatch to see what the commotion was, were thrown sideways, tumbling into the railings.
BOOM!
The falling ship missed the Merry by a mere hundred yards, crashing into the ocean with the force of a falling meteor. A massive wall of water erupted into the air, drenching the deck and tossing the Merry like a cork in a bathtub.
Once the ship steadied, Nami scrambled to the railing, her face red with fury. "Which ship attacked us?! Was it the Marines? A pirate ambush?!"
She looked over and saw Luffy, Usopp, and the giants staring over the side of the ship into the churning water where the wreckage was sinking.
"Nami... look," Luffy said, pointing down.
"What am I looking at?" Nami snapped.
"It's a ship, it fell from the sky, Nami!" Usopp wailed, clutching his head. "A giant ship just dropped out of the clouds!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Nami said, crossing her arms. "Ships don't fall from—"
"Actually, Nami-san," Merry's voice came over the speakers, sounding uncharacteristically somber. "My sensors confirm the object originated from an altitude of approximately 10,000 meters. It was indeed a falling vessel."
Nami went pale. "Ten thousand meters...? That's... that's impossible."
"I wanna go check it out!" Luffy shouted, his excitement already overriding his shock. "There's gotta be treasure! Or mystery! Or sky-meat!"
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Usopp yelled. "It's a ghost ship! It's cursed! We are staying right here on this nice, safe deck!"
Ben stepped onto the deck, a calm smile on his face. He had been expecting this. "Actually, Usopp, I think the Captain has the right idea."
Ben tapped a bead on his wrist. "Merry, bring out the toys."
The deck plating near the main mast slid open with a mechanical hiss. From the depths of the ship, five metallic objects shot into the air, propelled by bright blue thrusters. They circled the ship once before hovering in a neat line above the deck.
They were suits of armor—sleek, gold-and-red masterpieces of engineering that bore a striking resemblance to the Mark 42. They gleamed in the sunlight, their eyes unlit, waiting for their pilots.
Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, Dory, and Brogy all froze. Their pupils dilated. Their mouths fell open.
"ROBOTS!" they screamed in unison, their eyes turning into literal stars.
"Not just robots," Ben chuckled. "Deep-sea atmospheric exploration suits. Merry, initiate armor sequence for the Captain."
One of the suits flew toward Luffy. With a series of clicks and whirs, it began to disassemble in mid-air, the pieces flying toward Luffy and snapping onto his limbs. Within seconds, the rubber man was encased in a high-tech exoskeleton. The visor snapped shut, and the eyes glowed with a soft blue light.
Usopp, Chopper, and the giants stared in absolute awe. It was the coolest thing they had ever seen.
"I want one! I want one!" Usopp jumped up and down, his fear of the ghost ship vanished in the face of giant robot suits.
Ben shook a finger. "Now hold on, Usopp. You said you wanted to stay on the 'nice, safe deck,' remember?"
Usopp immediately puffed out his chest, striking a heroic pose. "Who said that? Certainly not the Great Captain Usopp! I was merely... testing the crew's resolve! Give me the armor!"
Ben grinned. "Alright. Merry, suit them up."
The remaining suits moved. One expanded to fit Chopper's Heavy Point form. Two others—massive, custom-built versions that Ben had spent weeks designing—flew toward the giants. Dory and Brogy laughed like children as the massive plates of reinforced steel locked over their colossal frames.
"Merry will assist with flight control and life support," Ben said, his expression becoming serious. "She'll guide you to the wreck and monitor the structural integrity of the area. If she says it's time to leave, you leave. Understood?"
"AYE AYE!" the five armored explorers shouted.
With a collective roar of repulsors, the five "Iron Pirates" blasted off the deck, leaving trails of white smoke in the sky as they dove toward the churning waters below.