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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #69
🕑 Added 2025-06-08 01:38:00 +0000 UTCMorning came with the salty sting of sea air and the rhythmic creak of the ship swaying at port. Gale was out on the deck early, shirt damp with sweat, his rapier flashing in practiced arcs through the sunlight.
One hand stayed tucked behind his back like a show-off fencing instructor; the other danced, lightning-quick, as the blade stabbed the empty air in a flurry of pinpoint thrusts.
Every so often, he’d twirl his feet in that florid step Florencio always preached about—“grace over power, beauty over brute”—and try not to think about how the old man would’ve smacked him with a rose stem if he saw the lazy turn in his ankle.
Off to the side, Poqin sat cross-legged like the world’s chillest monk, posture upright and expression unusually serene. If it weren’t for the half-empty bottle of rum sitting next to him, Gale might’ve mistaken it for actual meditation.
He paused for a moment, stealing a glance. Wow, he thought. Would you look at that—discipline. Maybe he’s finally turni—
Poqin took a slow, casual sip from the bottle without even opening his eyes.
—aaaaand there it goes.
Gale shook his head with a grin and went back to his footwork. It felt good to move. After the diplomatic minefield that was Mary Geoise, slicing air felt downright therapeutic.
Then the explosion hit.
It was loud—really loud. Enough to make Gale miss a step and almost trip over his own feet like a beginner on his first day.
BOOOM.
The sound rolled across the sea like thunder, followed by the sharp, unnatural crack of metal breaking. Gale’s head snapped toward the Red Line just in time to see one of the bondola elevators snap free and plummet like a stone, crashing into the ground in a burst of smoke and debris.
Then came more explosions. More smoke. More chaos. And—yep, there it was—a glimmering beam of golden light slicing across the sky like a divine mood swing.
Gale narrowed his eyes. Figures—tiny dots at this distance—were being flung down the Red Line, some soaring through the air like ragdolls in a bar fight with gravity.
A quiet shuffle behind him. Poqin was now standing next to him, scratching his head lazily.
“…You seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked, voice calm like they were watching clouds and not the probable collapse of one of the most heavily guarded strongholds on the planet.
Gale folded his arms, brows furrowed. “Yeah. Looks like someone’s acting on our ‘murder all the Celestial Dragons’ fantasy.”
Another explosion bloomed like fireworks in hell. Gale winced.
“…And it looks pretty bad.”
FLASH. A blinding arc of golden light streaked across the skyline.
Gale’s frown deepened. “Seems even Kizaru’s mixed in…”
Which could mean anything from he’s here to stop the carnage to he’s chasing someone that actually managed to punch a Celestial Dragon in the face. Knowing Kizaru? Probably both.
He muttered, “This is either a really bad day for the World Government… or a really good one for karma.”
Poqin nodded solemnly, took another sip from his bottle, and said, “Guess we’re not going back up there, huh?”
He just stood there, eyes locked on the chaos unraveling in the distance—little flashes of golden light, specks of bodies falling like ragdolls, plumes of smoke curling against the Red Line like ink in water. Whatever was happening up there, it wasn’t quiet, it wasn’t diplomatic, and it sure as hell wasn’t on the Reverie schedule.
He swallowed hard, fighting down the mix of nerves, morbid curiosity… and, yeah, a tiny, shameful shred of schadenfreude. Someone up there had finally had it. Someone snapped.
Good.
He shook his head and muttered, “The last thing I wanna do is fight for those bubbled pigs… I ain’t going nowhere unless someone with a considerably higher paycheck tells me to.”
Poqin gave him a squinty look from behind his bottle, eyes narrowed like he was watching a toddler play near an open fire.
“I think you might’ve just jinxed it…” he started, “Didn’t anybody ever teach you to—”
He didn’t get to finish.
The door to the lower deck slammed open, a marine soldier bursting through like he was trying out for the Olympic 100-meter dash. The poor guy was red-faced, panting, and holding up a transponder snail like it was a holy relic. The snail, of course, was unmistakable—curly-haired, wearing tiny shades, and looking as laid-back as a sloth on vacation.
Gale visibly winced.
“Admiral Kizaru is on the line!” the soldier barked, presenting the snail like he expected it to bite someone.
Poqin sighed and slowly turned to Gale with a look that could sour milk.
“Told you so…” he muttered, just before taking a long, smug sip from his bottle.
Gale shot Poqin a dirty look. “You didn’t even finish your sentence, so it doesn’t count.”
Poqin just smirked like a man who knew the universe had his back.
Without wasting another second, Gale snatched the snail from the marine’s hands, gave a quick throat-clear, and said, “This is Harlow Gale. What are your orders, sir?”
The transponder snail's mouth flapped open with Kizaru’s signature drawl—slow, lazy, and somehow still smug even while chaos boomed in the background.
“Ohhh… the situation is quite scary up here… someone tried to attack a Celestial Dragon, you know? The one they call Vlancio Shepherd…”
Gale winced. “That name means absolutely nothing to me.”
There was a long pause. An awkward one. Then a couple of distant booms—not so distant for Kizaru, by the sound of it.
Finally, the admiral’s voice came back on, as calm as if he were ordering lunch. “He’s the Celestial Dragon who stepped in to take that Oswald guy away… before he could grope that king’s wife some more.”
Gale frowned, the image of the celestial dragon with a missing finger flashing through his mind like an unwanted pop-up ad. '
So that was his name. Vlancio Shepherd.'
Now he had a name and a face. All he needed was an opportunity to punch that face into the ground until it was flatter than Poqin’s jokes—and then find a way to get away with it.
He cleared his throat and pushed those dreams down into the emotional dumpster where they belonged for now. “In any case, sir… what are your orders?”
There was another explosion on Kizaru’s end—sounded like someone threw a cannonball through a jewelry store. But the admiral didn’t even raise his voice.
“Ohhh… the attacker had some friends… mmm… they’re covering for her escape, so I’m a little too busy to go after her personally…”
He let that hang in the air, and Gale didn’t like the taste of it one bit.
Kizaru continued. “It’s a woman with a white rose in her hair… and a sword that looks a lot like yours…”
Gale’s face tightened.
“She should be making her way to the docks to escape. I’m assigning her arrest to you and the monk.”
There was a beat of silence.
Gale blinked. Poqin blinked. Somewhere in the distance, a building exploded in flaming golden glory.
Gale muttered under his breath, “Of course she’s the one with the rose and the sword. Of course she is…”
As the call ended with a click and the snail went limp in his hand, Gale exhaled slowly, already dreading what came next.
Poqin scratched his head and lazily pointed toward the far end of the docks. “So… a woman with a rose and a sword… like that one?”
Gale followed his finger.
Yup. There she was. The same mysterious woman from the plaza earlier—white rose still tucked neatly into her hair, black coat billowing behind her like something out of a drama serial, and a blade in her hand that glinted far too familiarly.
And just behind her? A whole squadron of those hulking, faceless Mary Geoise guards stomping after her like angry tin cans. To make things worse, a line of Marine soldiers stood ahead of her, trying to cut her off.
Gale didn’t even get to blink before she moved.
One second, she pointed her sword forward like she was conducting an invisible orchestra—
The next, boom. She vanished.
What followed looked less like a fight and more like an airshow. Marines went flying into the sky, flailing like rag dolls. Helmets flew. Rifles scattered. Someone’s boot made an arc like a comet across the docks.
She reappeared behind the chaos, already sprinting toward one of the docked ships without breaking a sweat.
Poqin let out a low whistle. “Whew. She looks kinda tough.”
Then he turned to Gale, eyes half-lidded as usual. “So, uh… what do you wanna do?”
Gale snorted. “Well, I’d like to shake her hand and maybe buy her a drink if she’s not busy committing high treason…”
He glanced back at the wreckage she left behind. A part of him was impressed. The other part was already tired.
“…But Kizaru’s orders are clear,” he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
He sighed and stepped up onto the railing, casually brushing dust from his coat. “We might as well put some effort into it…”
He paused, then gave Poqin a side glance.
“Not a lot of effort. Just enough for Kizaru not to have our balls mounted on display back at HQ.”
Poqin gave a slow, solemn nod as he took one last sip from his bottle, then tucked it back into his ropes like a squirrel storing booze for winter.
“Fair. I like my balls where they are.”
Gale shook his head, drawing his rapier as he leapt down toward the dock below.
“Let’s 'try' to ruin the pretty sword lady's great escape, I guess…”
...
The young woman gripped her sword tighter as her boots pounded against the stone of the docks, every step sending a jolt up her spine. Her breath came hard and fast, adrenaline roaring in her veins like cannonfire.
Somewhere behind her, a guard shouted orders. Somewhere ahead, a line of Marines braced for impact.
She didn’t slow down.
This was supposed to be simple.
A clean mission. Spy on the Reverie. Infiltrate the halls of power. Get in, gather dirt, get out. Standard Revolutionary Army playbook stuff. There were contingency plans—A, B, C, all the way to Zed if it came to that.
They had disguises, escape routes, coordinated distraction points. Every variable accounted for.
Except her damn temper.
Things were going smoothly. Another operator had infiltrated the conference chamber.
They’d already collected a treasure trove of intel: which kings were secretly bleeding their nations dry, which ones were considering pulling out of the World Government, who might be open to talks with the Revolutionary Army, and most importantly, who was vulnerable.
It was going perfectly.
Until she saw him.
The Celestial Dragon with the single missing finger. Vlancio Shepherd. That smug, prancing, bubble-wearing little ghoul.
She remembered that face. That voice. That laugh. The way he’d pointed at her and said, “I want that one.”
The same bastard who had her family’s estate torched, her mother executed, and their name struck from the records, just because she’d had the gall to tell him no.
She’d buried that fire for years under layers of discipline and duty.
But when she saw him lounging there, bored, like he owned the air around him?
She snapped.
She didn’t even remember drawing her sword. One second she was standing there in the crowd, the next she was lunging at him, blade first, fury bleeding through her fingertips. She managed to land a hit—not deep, not fatal, just enough to stain white silk with red.
Then all hell broke loose.
Cipher Pol agents dropped from the ceiling like roaches. Kizaru appeared out of literal light, smiling like he was sleepwalking through a battlefield. The chaos was instant and absolute.
And now, here she was—fleeing, blade drawn, coat torn, lungs burning, and still trying to figure out if she was a genius or an absolute idiot.
She vanished in a blur, cutting through the Marine blockade with a practiced ease that belied her exhaustion. She didn’t have time to think. Her team had triggered the escape plan the second she blew their cover.
Bless them for sticking by her—even after she’d gone off-script and basically thrown their years of planning into a bonfire out of raw spite.
She leapt over the last crate and sprinted toward the nearest ship. Almost there.
'I'm going to get chewed out so hard my ears will fall off,' she thought grimly. 'If I even make it out of this alive that is...'
Still, despite everything, there was a grim satisfaction in the pit of her chest. That bastard would have a scar now. A reminder. A whisper that he wasn’t untouchable after all, not that he needed one thanks to her grandfather...
