The obsidian hull of the Tidereaver cut through the placid, pre-dawn waters of the Florian Triangle, its passage leaving a phosphorescent wake that shimmered like scattered stars in the dark sea.
The oppressive gloom of Thriller Bark was now a fading smudge on the horizon, a bad memory being swallowed by distance and mist.
On the expansive forward deck, away from the quiet hum of the ship's systems and the soft chatter of the crew preparing for the day, Ragnar sat in a heavy, comfortably worn reclining chair carved from the driftwood of a forgotten sea-king's nest.
A crystal glass of water, perpetually chilled by his will, sat on a small table beside him, condensation beading on its surface.
He closed his golden eyes, not in rest, but in focus. He reached out with a part of his consciousness that was not bound by the physical, a frequency reserved for a single, unique connection.
Before him, the air shimmered, pixels of light coalescing like a million fireflies arranging themselves into a familiar, sharp-featured face. It was Morgan's.
"What can I do for you, Captain?" Morgan's voice was a vibrant, enthusiastic hum, devoid of its usual theatrical boom. It was the sound of pure, unadulterated loyalty, eager for purpose.
Ragnar took a slow sip from his glass. "Where are you, Morgans? I have a task that requires your particular talents."
"Khahah!" Morgan's projected laugh was a sharp, pleased sound. "Fortuitous timing! I just concluded my… editorial oversight… in Dressrosa. A fascinating little kingdom, drowning in sugar and secrets. I am currently en route back to my floating headquarters."
"Change your course," Ragnar commanded, his tone calm but absolute. "Since you're in the vicinity, disguise yourself and make for Punk Hazard."
"The world government's forsaken laboratory? A place of interesting echoes, Captain." Morgans' glowing eyes narrowed with immediate interest.
"Precisely. There is a Devil Fruit there, left behind by Vegapunk in his haste to abandon that ruined facility. It's now being used as a clandestine base by Doflamingo and his pet scientist, Caesar Clown." Ragnar's lips curled in a faint smirk.
"I want you to retrieve the fruit. Do it with stealth. And while you're there, plant a Heaven's Mark. I want a permanent eye on that operation." He paused, his gaze intensifying.
"Additionally, use your networks. I need you to find the current location of Wapol, the former king of the Drum Kingdom. The man possesses a rather…interesting devil fruit"
The instructions were delivered without room for question. The retrieval, the espionage, the hunt, a multi-layered mission requiring speed, subtlety, and overwhelming information-gathering prowess.
"Okay, Captain! Leave it to me!" Morgans chirped, his enthusiasm undimmed by the complexity of the orders. Without another word, the projection dissolved into motes of fading light.
….
On the other side of the world, soaring high above the blue expanse of the New World, the real Morgans ended the connection.
His massive albatross form, augmented by the shimmering, semi-corporeal wings of his angelic power, banked sharply in mid-air.
The course was set. Dressrosa vanished behind him, and he shot forward with impossible speed, a white and gold blur against the azure sky.
The air didn't just part for him; it seemed to actively propel him, the very concept of 'news' and 'information' carrying him faster than any wind towards the toxic shores of Punk Hazard.
It wasn't long before the island came into view, a truly hellish landscape. One half of the island was a frozen wasteland, locked in perpetual winter, while the other half was a blazing inferno of raging fires.
The entire place was swathed in a thick, multicolored, poisonous miasma that coiled into the sky like the breath of a dying god. Morgans, unaffected by the toxic fumes thanks to his celestial nature, descended through the haze, his form shifting and blurring.
His distinctive features melted away, replaced by a generic, forgettable face and a plain grey cloak, the perfect camouflage for a ghost.
He landed silently on the scorched earth near the main laboratory complex, a dilapidated dome that had seen better days. He didn't need to breach the physical security; his power was perception itself. Closing his eyes, he projected his gaze.
His consciousness slipped through cracks in the walls, under doorways, flowing like water through the sterile, cold corridors of the lab.
He bypassed patrolling guards in hazmat suits, ignored the raucous laughter of a man in a striped jailer's uniform, and filtered through rooms filled with bizarre scientific equipment and cages holding frightened, malnourished children.
His search zeroed in on a smaller, cluttered storage room. And there it was. Sitting on a dusty shelf, looking utterly mundane next to broken beakers and discarded schematics, was a pink-shaped fruit with swirling patterns.
The Dragom-model Zoan fruit Vegapunk had been deemed a failure. But his triumph was short-lived. A small boy, with a ridiculous patched patterned hakama and a topknot, had found it.
The child, Momonosuke, was staring at the strange fruit with a mixture of curiosity and hunger. His small hands reached for it, lifting it to his mouth. He was moments from taking a bite.
A failure was not an option. The Captain's task was paramount.
Morgans' projected voice, a disembodied, echoing whisper that seemed to come from the very walls and shadows of the room, slammed into the boy's mind.
"DO NOT TOUCH THAT."
The effect was instantaneous and terrifying. Momonosuke shrieked, a high-pitched cry of pure, unadulterated fright. He flung the fruit away from him as if it had burst into flames. It clattered across the floor, rolling towards a vent.
In that same instant, the air in the room ripped. Morgans, moving at the speed of propagated information, blitzed into the physical space.
He was a grey phantom, there and gone in less than a heartbeat. His hand snatched the rolling fruit from the ground, securing it safely within his cloak.
As he passed the stunned, weeping child, his other hand, almost as an afterthought, swung in a casual, backhanded blow.
It wasn't a strike meant to kill, but one of pure, unthinking punishment for nearly causing an irredeemable failure for him. The impact was solid, a sickening thwack of knuckles against a small skull.
Momonosuke was thrown sideways, his head cracking against a metal leg of a table before he crumpled to the floor, a trickle of blood already welling from a gash on his temple.
Then, as swiftly as he had appeared, Morgans was gone. The only evidence of his presence was the missing fruit and the now-unconscious, bleeding child on the cold floor.
Silence returned for a few precious seconds before it was shattered. The noise of Momonosuke's scream and the subsequent crash had drawn attention. Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway.
The door to the storage room was thrown open, revealing several armed guards and, behind them, the tall, gaunt figure of Caesar Clown.
"What is all this racket, you incompetent-" Caesar's words died in his throat. His eyes scanned the room, instantly noting the absence of the specific fruit he kept around as a reminder of Vegapunk's fallibility.
His gaze then fell upon Momonosuke, who was groaning, starting to stir, and clutching his bleeding head.
"The… the fruit…" Momonosuke whimpered, tears mixing with the blood on his face. "Someone… a man… he took it…"
"LIAR!" Caesar roared, his face contorting with fury. The loss of the fruit itself was minor, a curiosity. But the implication, that someone had breached his laboratory, had seen his operations, had stolen from him, was an intolerable insult.
"You stupid, greedy child! You ate it, didn't you? You couldn't resist! And now you're lying to me!"
"I didn't! I swear! A man came from nowhere! He hit me!" Momonosuke cried, his small body trembling violently.
"Gas Robe!" Caesar snarled, his body dissolving from the waist down into a cloud of purple, noxious gas. The cloud enveloped the boy, who immediately began to choke and gasp, his skin turning an alarming shade of violet. "Tell me the truth! What did you do with my specimen?"
Through the suffocating, painful agony, through the terror that seized his tiny heart, Momonosuke could only repeat the same, desperate truth. "A… a man… took it… please…"
Caesar increased the potency of the gas, his rage blinded him to anything but the perceived betrayal. The guards watched impassively.
The child's struggles grew weaker, his pleas turned to ragged, wet gurgles, and then, finally, they stopped altogether. His small body went limp on the floor, his eyes wide and unseeing, a final expression of terror frozen on his features.
Caesar reformed his legs, staring down at the lifeless form. His initial fury was now joined by a cold, pragmatic alarm. The fruit was gone.
The boy was dead. Someone had been here. Someone who could move unseen and snatch something from under his nose. He kicked the small corpse in frustration.
"This is a problem," he muttered to himself, his mind already racing, not with grief, but with the potential exposure of his illegal research and the weapons trade with Doflamingo.
The theft was a message, an invasion. And he had no idea who had sent it. Far above, invisible in the toxic smog,
Morgans pressed a finger against a hidden panel on the lab's outer dome, leaving a faint, shimmering sigil, the Heaven's Mark, that would remain unseen by all but its creator.
His primary task complete, he took flight once more, the ill-gotten Devil Fruit secure, his thoughts already turning to the hunt for a disgraced, gluttonous king.