Chapter 18: The Legend of Gray Terminal
Axel stepped into the center of the defeated pirates and looked over them quietly.
His body was still thin, his face still far too delicate for the battlefield he stood upon, and with his pale hair and red eyes, he looked less like the one who had crushed Bluejam than some strange child who had wandered into the wrong place.
No one there made that mistake.
Every pirate present had seen what happened.
They had seen Bluejam fall.
They had seen Axel wound the man everyone in Gray Terminal feared.
So when he opened his mouth, the entire field went still.
"I have no intention of taking your lives," Axel said calmly. "You can all go back to Gray Terminal alive."
The effect was immediate.
Some of the pirates had been on the verge of rioting from sheer panic. Others had clearly been waiting for the first fool to make a move so they could gamble on the chaos. The moment Axel made his position clear, the tension eased a little, and the most dangerous looks in the crowd softened.
Then Axel continued.
"But you'll still need to pay a price."
The pirates stiffened again.
A few impatient men could not hold back.
"What price?"
"Yeah, what do you want from us?"
Their anxiety was understandable. A price that came after defeat could be anything, and in places like Gray Terminal, "mercy" often cost more than death.
Axel raised one finger.
"Ten thousand Berries each."
The pirates blinked.
For a second, many of them looked confused.
Too much?
No.
If anything, it sounded suspiciously cheap.
Most pirates, even the weaker ones, had some savings tucked away somewhere. Ten thousand Berries hurt, but it was not ruinous. Even ordinary members of Bluejam's crew could scrape that amount together.
Then Axel added the part that mattered.
"And that's not just for the people here. The rest of Bluejam's people will pay too. Ordinary members owe ten thousand each. Officers owe one hundred thousand."
Now the crowd truly reacted.
One of the officers immediately lost his temper.
"That's bullshit! Why do we pay ten times more than the rest?!"
Axel did not even look at him kindly.
"Because your lives cost more," he said. "Or at least, you clearly think they do."
Then his voice turned colder.
"You have two choices. Money or death. Pick one."
The pirate officer's mouth opened, then closed again.
Axel took another step forward.
"And there's more. Report an ordinary pirate trying to hide or run, and your payment is cut in half. Report an officer, and your payment drops by fifty thousand Berries."
That hit them harder than any threat.
Axel saw it happen in real time.
Before, some of the pirates had clearly been thinking about slipping away later, betting that Axel and the others could not possibly identify every one of Bluejam's scattered men.
Now?
Now every pirate who planned to hide had suddenly become a walking discount in the eyes of his companions.
The looks they exchanged changed immediately.
Suspicion.
Calculation.
Greed.
That was all Axel needed.
Still, he did not stop there.
He had already discussed this approach with Ace and Sabo. A little reward to divide them, a little fear to control them. Gray Terminal did not run on morality. It ran on self interest, intimidation, and immediate profit.
So Axel gave them the next part too.
Boom!
He drove his fist into the ground.
The earth cracked under the impact.
It was not a casual strike. Axel had prepared the vector behind it carefully, concentrating force into that single point just enough to produce the right effect.
The ground split slightly.
Dust jumped.
And the pirates flinched.
Whatever thoughts some of them still had about resisting died on the spot.
It was one thing to see Axel hurt Bluejam.
It was another thing entirely to stand in front of him and watch the ground crack open under a single punch.
If that landed on a person, there would not even be a body worth burying.
The atmosphere changed completely.
The weak submit to the strong.
In the Great Pirate Era, that was not philosophy.
It was instinct.
Seeing their eyes settle, Axel nodded faintly and continued.
"Of course, you can try to run."
His gaze swept across the pirates one by one.
"If you want to escape, then leave the island entirely. Because Gray Terminal won't be safe for you."
A few men swallowed hard.
Axel's tone remained level.
"And if you want to resist, then do it now. I'll stay right here and accept your challenge. Beat me, and you can make the rules. Lose, and you'll obey mine. Any objections?"
Silence.
Not one pirate answered.
Many of them even looked away the moment Axel's eyes passed over them. Nobody wanted to be the first one noticed. Nobody wanted to be the idiot who stood up only to get crushed in front of everyone else.
Axel let the silence hang for a moment, then concluded the matter.
"Good. Then go back."
He turned slightly and pointed in the direction of Gray Terminal.
"Three days from now, at this same time, you come here and pay."
That was all it took.
The pirates scattered like birds startled by gunfire, rushing toward the forest and vanishing into the trees with astonishing speed. Not one of them even thought about lingering.
Luffy watched the whole thing with sparkling eyes.
"So cool...!"
He ran up to Axel immediately, his admiration plain on his face.
"That punch just now, how did you do it?"
Axel looked at him for half a second, then deadpanned, "It takes incredible perseverance, unbreakable willpower, years of training, and a heart that never gives up. You need to strengthen your body, your mind, your spirit, and every part of yourself every single day."
[TL: Damn]
Luffy listened with complete sincerity.
Ace, standing nearby, ruined it instantly.
"That was obviously his Devil Fruit."
Axel turned and sighed. "Ace, don't expose me. Teasing Luffy is fun."
Luffy froze.
Then his face started to fall apart with pure betrayed disbelief.
"So that was all a lie?!"
His shoulders drooped. His eyes went wide and blank. Even his expression seemed to lose structure, as though his soul had momentarily left his body.
Sabo laughed.
"But Luffy's not wrong. That was seriously cool." His eyes gleamed a little as he looked at Axel. "I kind of want to do something like that too. Right, Ace?"
Ace folded his arms and looked away.
"Tch. Who'd envy that?"
His face said otherwise.
Axel noticed it immediately and almost laughed.
If things had gone the same way as the original timeline, Sabo would one day become the Revolutionary Army's chief of staff. That future version of him would be far cooler than anything Axel had done here.
But the story had already begun to shift.
Who knew where things would go now?
Luffy suddenly popped out from the side and landed the finishing blow.
"Ace is embarrassed again."
Ace's face darkened instantly.
"Luffy!"
He grabbed a pipe from the ground and charged.
Luffy yelped and ran for his life.
The two of them tore off through the clearing in another ridiculous chase, one screaming, the other laughing, like the battlefield they had just survived meant absolutely nothing.
Axel glanced at Sabo.
"You're not going to stop them?"
Sabo crossed his arms and watched with obvious amusement.
"Why would I? This is interesting."
Axel was speechless.
So Sabo had that kind of personality too.
A moment later, Dadan walked over from the side.
Fresh from battle, she looked even fiercer than usual, but her expression softened slightly as she watched the children bickering and running around as though they had not just brought down the tyrant of Gray Terminal.
The more she looked, the stranger it felt.
Bluejam had been a real threat. In terms of raw combat power, he might even have surpassed her. And yet, he had still been dragged down and defeated by this group of children.
If she had not seen it with her own eyes, she would never have believed it.
She had played her part, yes.
But so had they.
Without them, Bluejam would still be standing.
Without them, Gray Terminal would still belong to him.
Three days later, the pirates returned.
Not to attack.
Not to take revenge.
But to pay.
One by one, they came back to the agreed upon place and handed over their share. Some looked bitter. Some looked humiliated. Some looked terrified. But they all paid.
As expected, Axel, Ace, Sabo, and Luffy stayed vigilant the entire time.
Even if the pirates appeared obedient, nobody here was stupid enough to trust men like this completely. It would only take one greedy fool to try something reckless for chaos to erupt again.
Yet strangely, nothing happened.
The money piled up higher and higher.
No one tried to snatch it.
No one tried to incite a fight.
No one even caused a serious disturbance.
The entire collection process continued in unnervingly smooth silence.
That only made it feel more suspicious.
Gray Terminal was not a place that produced this kind of peace naturally.
By the time the payments were done, even Axel felt something was off.
This is too calm.
Far too calm.
Surely among so many pirates, there had to be at least a few greedy enough to risk everything for a pile like this.
So Sabo was sent to investigate.
He disappeared into Gray Terminal and did not come back for several hours.
When he finally returned, he was breathing hard, grinning so widely his missing tooth showed clearly.
Axel, Ace, and Luffy all looked at him.
Sabo took a breath, then another.
And then, with a mixture of disbelief and excitement, he declared:
"We... we've become the legends of Gray Terminal."
.....
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