Chapter 30

The victory party lasted for a week after the uprising was dealt with.

During the party several Valkira told him about the monsters that lived on various islands around Valhallia that their warriors fought to test their strength. No one had ever managed to beat all of them, the Valkira Commander Fraja told him, not even King Wodin, so halfway through the celebration Marshall decided hey, why not.

Grabbing a map and the waver he'd bought on Olympios, he set out.

The following week he fought, in order: a wolf the size of a warship, a giant eagle that could probably pick up the Coddiwomple with room to spare, a snake twice the size Nula would be on Skypeia and five times as venomous, a strange blue giant, another giant who was literally on fire, a horse that ate a Spider-Spider Fruit, a half-giant who'd eaten a Lizard-Lizard Fruit, and an honest-to-Davy Jones dragon.

He beat them up but otherwise let them be because the Valkira had this whole thing going and he wasn't going to ruin that. Back at the party the Valkira had told him that it was a tradition to bring back proof of his victory so he wound up hauling a bunch of random junk from one island to the next as he worked his way down the list.

(He did give serious thought to taking some of the dragon's treasure, but the Coddi was getting a bit full so he just took some seeds from some flowers growing in the dragon's cave as a souvenir. The dragon actually looked approving, which he thought was odd.)

It was only as he was making his way back to Valhallia laden with trophies that he realized that oh yeah, he hadn't told his crew where he was going had he? The cheers that erupted from the dock when he came into view and the way half the people fell to their knees to start thanking the gods confirmed it.

He only found out later that everyone had been too drunk to remember him leaving, so when his crew woke up after the party they thought he'd vanished and proceeded to freak out.

(He had the utmost respect for Wodin for handling the resulting chaos as well as he had.)

"You...beat all of them?"

King Wodin was visibly shaken, staring in stunned awe at the array of objects spread out on one of the tables in the mead hall.

There's a tuft of wolf hair the size of an anchor and a feather as long as the Coddi's mast, and that was just the start. After that was a snake scale big enough for him to use as a full-body shield, one of the icicles that the blue giant had been using as a beard, a burnt piece of rock that the flaming giant threw up after one too many punches to the stomach, and two horseshoes. Finally there was the tail he'd ripped off the lizard man (which he was pretty sure would grow back, as the half-giant himself didn't seem overly concerned) and the seeds he took from the dragon's cave.

Marshall barely had time to nod before his crew rushed over, all of them clustered around him and trying to talk at the same time.

"What the hell?!"

"Are you okay?"

"What took you so long?"

"Tell us about the fights!"

"Hiss/Grrrr!"

Laughing at the worried/curious/eager/irritated looks on his crew's faces, he summarized how he'd heard about the monsters during the party and decided to give it a try, following up with brief descriptions of the battles and (in deference to Wilde's frazzled nerves) ending with an apology for not making sure one of them was sober enough to remember him leaving. "All in all, I had a pretty good time," he finished, pausing before he asked, "how about you guys? You have fun while I was gone?"

His crew looked at each awkwardly, then turned back to him and shrugged in unison, trying to play it off as they made so-so motions. He snorted and gave them a skeptical look because yeah, he believed that.

They had the grace to look sheepish.

When Wodin snapped out of his shock, he promptly clapped his hands, a wide grin on his face as he laughed. "Excellent! I now worry if the prize we planned to bestow isn't enough for such a powerful warrior!"

Wodin's wife Fryga piped up, voice warm with amusement, "indeed, we might have need to find a greater reward."

"...Wait, what prize?"

Looking up at the 'prize' Wodin mentioned, Marshall was dumbfounded.

At a loss for words, he could only stare, waiting for his mind to register what his eyes were telling him. Around him his crew made appreciative noises, hearing the whispers of awe as if from underwater.

One of the shipwrights heard the muttering and came over (he thought it might have been Beldir, one of Wodin's kids). Laughing at the sounds of amazement, the Valhallian bragged, "ain't it a beauty? One of my best work, if I do say so myself!"

"She looks so different!" Vertara exclaimed, echoed by the rest of his crew while he stood there like a statue, still gaping at Wodin's idea of a reward.

It was obviously the Coddiwomple, but very different from how he remembered his ship looking when he left a week ago. The gleaming white hull was the same, as was the dark purple paint on the trim, but everything else...for one thing, he didn't remember the Coddi being so big. Instead of the caravel-sized ship he was used to, the Coddi was now half the size of the Moby Dick and looked like a proper warship. Instead of looking ridiculous, the Coddi gave off an aura of power and intimidation, like a giant bird of prey watching you from on high.

"I gotta say, those shipwrights on Olympios knew what they were doing," Beldir admitted. "That Dial system is ingenious - I didn't need to change anything at all, just expand it."

"I can't wait to see what it looks like inside!" Wilde grinned, bouncing with glee as Trax chuffed beside the thief, the tiger swishing his tail eagerly as he looked speculatively at the various railings. Olivia's hands rubbed together, the doctor obviously anticipating getting a look at her infirmary, Rune standing beside her looking just as interested. Feral was eyeing the space on the deck, perfect for practicing her swordsmanship, and Vertara was grilling the shipwright about the inside renovations.

Like on Olympios, the Valhallian shipwrights had transferred their quarters completely intact along with the storeroom.

"Angel Tree Wood is like a stone knife next to a steel battleaxe when compared to the wood of our Heaven Tree, but it would be a crime to discard such craftsmanship, so we incorporated a lot of the original rooms, contents untouched, into the new design." Beldir explained.

(Later he would laugh that the Valhallians thought that he'd gotten the whole ship from the Olympiosans, but right now he was too busy trying to get his brain to work.)

As if from a distance, he heard himself ask, tone filled in confusion, "why do Sky Islanders insist on giving me ships?"

In the end there was no use arguing; what was done was done. The Valhallians had already upgraded the Coddi, and honestly? Watching his crew's reactions as they explored the new interior of the ship, he wouldn't have done anything even if he could. He repainted the Coddiwomple's name on the side, the Valhallians happily supplying the paint.

He may have gone a little overboard during his shopping spree in the three days before he left, but Sky Island! Some of his best shopping experiences were on Sky Islands, and Valhallia proved no exception. Trading some of the Island's Blood gems from Vertara's home island netted him plenty of the local currency, and he combed through all of the shops and stalls on the island four times and spent all of it (plus a jar of dirt he kept around for just such an occasion) before he was satisfied.

And thanks to the Valhallia shipwrights, he had plenty of room to put his new purchases.

Two days after they left Valhallia and returned to the blue sea, his crew came to him with a request that he was less than enthusiastic about.

"You want me to...what?" Marshall stared.

"Use Conqueror's Haki on us," Vertara repeated. "When that other guy used it, none of us were able to move a muscle and you had to save us."

"Which I didn't mind," he pointed out.

"But we did." Wilde answered. "We were pinned like rats in a trap. More than useless, we were a burden."

Olivia picked up the thread, "if that other captain had been just a bit stronger, or if one of his crew had just been faking it, you might have been injured while defending us."

Feral growled, the noise carrying an obvious tone of agreement.

"Taking a small amount of poison can help build a resistance to a larger dose," Rune supplied, having been told about the incident they were talking about and wanting to be helpful.

He really didn't have much of a choice, did he? Marshall sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. He did need the practice, but it didn't feel right, using Conqueror's Haki on his own crew. "The minute I decide you can't take any more, I'm stopping," he warned, pointedly ignoring the exchange of high-fives and pleased looks.

As much as he loved them, sometimes his crew were idiots, and he was definitely saying he told them so when this blew up in their faces.

"Kneel."

Pressed down by the overwhelming feeling of darkness, Vertara panted, on her hands and knees and struggling to breathe through the pressure. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, tears forming in her eyes as she tried to draw air into her lungs. The others around her were in much the same condition, Rune and Trax laying flat on their bellies from the weight of the order.

Her captain's word, laced with Conqueror's Haki, rang in her ears like a death knell, reverberating through her soul. The looming abyss of her captain's presence threatening to swallow her whole, for the first time in her life, she felt afraid of the dark.

"Breathe."

Choking on the rush of air, Wilde obeyed the command. Every thought was focused on the sheer terror threatening to consume him, heart pounding as he tried to fight through the fear. All he could see was darkness; surrounded by the abyss of his captain's haki, his whole body trembled.

He knew that he and the others had asked for this, but having the force of his captain's haki focused on them instead of an enemy was absolutely terrifying.

From beside him he could hear both Feral and Trax snarling in panic, the swordsman having managed to stay on one knee but sweating heavily from the effort. The look in her eyes matched her name, her captain's order keeping her locked in place. Olivia was shaking like she was in a blizzard on a Winter Island, shivering and panting, her hair and skin soaked with sweat. Rune was on his stomach on her other side, eyes wide and nearly catatonic.

(Later, Rune would tell her that he thought the only reason he kept breathing through the feeling of darkness was because his captain had told him to.)

"That's enough." Marshall spoke, abruptly cutting off the flow of haki when both Wilde and Trax started wheezing. All of his crew collapsed, taking deep gulps of air and okay, he was kind of worried about that. A quick Shave and he returned with glasses of water for all of them, which he made sure they drank.

"You all alright?" He asked, gently rubbing Vertara's back as she caught her breath.

"Ye-yeah, I think we're okay...that was intense." Wilde gasped out, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Feral and Olivia nodded in agreement, Trax quietly chuffing, but it took Rune longer to recover before he voiced his assent.

"Right, that's all for the day," Marshall declared.

No one argued.