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Donny snapped his flipper into a salute. "I accept this position with—GYAH!" he yelped as his one-handed grip on the rope promptly slipped and he was awarded with a painful rope burn. Immediately, he scrambled to get the rope back under control, earning more rope burns in the process.

"ACK! CAREFUL, CAREFUL!" Brook cried as he jerked downwards and swung precariously over the watery coffin.

"Watch it, we need to be careful about how we do this!" Chopper chastised his newly chosen apprentice.

"And what exactly is 'this'?" came another voice.

The trio all turned their attention to a corner of the quarterdeck, where a previously sun tanning Perona had lifted her sunglasses onto her forehead and was regarding them with a cocked eyebrow.

Chopper and Donny exchanged uncertain looks, silently considering how much information they could or should divulge, only for the choice to be taken from their hands when Brook spoke up.

"Per Cross's advice, I am attempting to explore the capabilities of my Devil Fruit powers," he casually explained.

Both hybrids looked at the skeleton in askance, to which he responded with a light shrug, inasmuch as he could manage in his sack. "She's a young girl who had no active part in either parts of my torment, I see no reason for a grudge or secrecy." He then turned back to Perona. "You see, as you've no doubt already guessed, I am as I am thanks to my Devil Fruit: the Revive-Revive Fruit, which, upon my first death, allowed my soul to return to the mortal coil and repossess my fallen body… if in a degraded state."

Perona blinked in legitimate surprise. "…Wow. Somehow, I'm actually still surprised by just how BS Devil Fruits can be," she deadpanned. "But how is dunking you in the water supposed to help you get a better grip on your powers? I don't need to why that doesn't make sense, I hope."

"Simply put, I'm returning to my power's roots," Brook explained. "As you'll recall, I said I returned to this world as a soul and then repossessed my body. According to Cross, this possession was not permanent, and I am fully capable of returning to my astral state, which could be useful for a variety of reasons. Most of all, disassociating myself from my body and ignoring such limitations as pain or injury to my corporeal form, which should rightly have no effect on me so long as I acknowledge that my skeleton is a mere shell. A convenient and dear shell, but just a shell. However…"

Brook's jaw twisted into as much of a grimace as it could manage. "Returning to my astral form is not as easy as it would sound. It has been fifty years since I returned from the afterlife, fifty years since I regained my body…"

Perona's expression fell into a deadpan. "And… you forgot how."

"Less that I forgot, more that I never knew that I could return to my soul state in the first place, in addition to not thinking there was any advantage to such a 'devolution', as I initially viewed it," Brook shrugged.

"Hence, this undertaking," Chopper spoke up, tapping the barrel. "Cross suggested this as an alternative to long hours of meditation, and as much as I don't like it, I agree with the train of thought: By slowly dunking Brook into the water, his instincts as a Devil Fruit user will make him desperate to escape, but his restraints will leave him only one possible means of doing so. In essence, we're going to be scaring him from… his… body…" Suddenly, Chopper turned his full attention to the ship's guest. "Unless you have any better ideas?"

The self-titled Ghost Princess snorted derisively as she flicked her sunglasses back down and leaned back into her chair, snapping her reflector board open. "None I'm going to share with you, furball."

"What!?" the doctor yelped in honest shock. "But we just—!"

"Lemme take a flying guess at her next words," Donny interrupted as he affixed the stowaway with a cold glare. "'Pirate', right?"

"You really struck gold with blubber-butt, Doc Hatchet," Perona sang, a smirk clear despite the reflector in the way. "He's already smarter than you."

Chopper glared at her for a second longer before snapping his head away with a harsh click of his tongue. "We're beginning the experiment. Donny, lower him in. Just a half-foot, we'll start easy."

"Aye," the purple-marked Dugong nodded, loosening his grip and slowly allowing his rope to slip through his flippers. Brook tensed as he lowered closer to the barrel. Water soaked into the fabric, and then through, engulfing his bony feet and prompting him to squirm.

"Anything?" Chopper called up with no small amount of concern.

"Ah…" Brook flinched uneasily as he shifted about. "A bit uncomfortable, and I'm trying my best to… to go up, as it were, but, well…"

"If you want to stop—"

"No, no, I can continue," Brook assured him.

"Alright then…" Chopper nodded slowly before glancing at his assistant. "Donny, another half-!"

"For the sake of my being able to relax without your pathetic whimpering, let me give you some advice."

"Wha—GAH!" Chopper yelped when a foot was suddenly planted in his back, sending him sprawling him to the ground to be swiftly pinned.

Perona sniffed haughtily as she ground her heel into the Zoan's spine, casting a dispassionate glare at the skeleton. "The key to separation? You just need to let go, numbskull. And on that note…" An unearthly cackling aura suddenly bloomed in her palm. "Good luck because you're gonna need it. NEGATIVE HOLLOW!"

It would be untrue to say that Donny didn't have the reflexes to dodge out of the way of the speeding specter. However, the fact that he was holding a rope that was keeping his crewmate out of hot water—or water, period, as it were��caused him to hesitate for a moment. And that moment was all the time he had.

Donny moaned and fell to his 'knees' as the specter passed through him. "I wish someone would just cook me into a—!"

SPLASH!

"GAH!" Water splashed onto Donny's body, knocking him out of his depression with a flash of horror. "BROOK!" Donny cried, staring in horror at the water sloshing from the barrel.

"BROOK, NO!" Chopper yelled, snapping into his Heavy Point—which was actually unnecessary as Perona had already stepped back as soon as she'd cast out her Negative Hollow—rushing over to the barrel and plunging his hand into the water, in spite of how it took a good chunk from his stamina. "Shit-shit-shit-shit—!"

"Hurry, Chopper! You have to get me out before I drown!" Brook pleaded desperately as he hovered over Chopper's shoulder.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!"

"Please, I can't hold my breath!"

"You don't have any breath to hold, numbskull. More than usual, even," Perona deadpanned, casting a dispassionate glare over her reflector.

"Eh?" Brook blinked in confusion, turning to stare at the Ghost Princess. "What are… you…?" He blinked again (even though he lacked eyelids), and turned back to his crewmates, who were staring at him in shock. "Ah… why are you looking at me like that?"

Chopper, devoid of words as he was, could only weakly point his finger into the barrel.

Tilting his head in confusion, Brook followed the Zoan's finger and stared into the water. Beneath the water's surface, a skeleton was slumped lifelessly. And reflected in the water's surface was—!

"AH! A ghost!" Brook recoiled with a shriek of terror. Then, just as swiftly, he calmed down as realization struck him. "Oh, wait, that's me. AH! I'm dead! Oh, wait, that's not new… OH! A cute woman!" The spectral pirate grinned eagerly at Perona. "Say, could you show me your—?"

"Could someone give Grampa his body back before he goes completely senile?" Perona demanded impatiently.

"But… isn't his brain already dead?" Donny questioned weakly.

"Yohohoho! That was funny! I think I'll call it a Skull Joke!" Brook chortled before jerking back in shock. "AH! A talking animal! Oh, wait, you're my crewmate… AH! Where am—!?"

Moving fast, Chopper shot his fist into the barrel, yanked the skeleton's afro out and effectively slapped the spirit upside his astral head with his own skull.

Brook yelped in shock, his skull vibrating slightly, his mood quickly ratcheting down to a relieved sigh. "Ah… ack… wow… that was… hoo…" the newly re-undead skeleton sighed in relief. "Well, at least I'm back to normal."

"Uhh… For… a given measure of the term anyways…" Donny hedged uneasily.

"Huh? What are yoouuWAAAAGH!" Brook's question devolved into a terrified shriek when he suddenly realized he was missing his body, and was in fact just a talking head in Chopper's shaky hands. "I'VE BEEN DECORPITATED!"

"And yet, much to my misery, you are still very much alive and still very noisy," Perona grumbled irritably. "Looks like loudmouth was right: You're just a soul, you don't need your body… well, you still do for now, until you manage to get ahold of yourself in astral form."

His breath back, Chopper slowly turned a wary but pleading look to the girl. "Do… could you please tell us what just happened… Ghost Princess?"

Perona blinked at the usage of her title, but then leaned back in her chair with a careless wave of her hand. "Eh… it's no big deal, really. It's just that going astral can be really disconcerting. Without your body, your mind gets set loose or something and you can lose track of yourself pretty fast. You just need to make sure you've got a good sense of self before you try, otherwise?" She shrugged carelessly. "You'll devolve into a will-o-the-wisp and scatter into dust on the aetherial wind."

Chopper and Donny both shuddered fearfully at the Goth's sheer nonchalance at some serious existential horror, but Brook… Brook's gaze, however expressionless, softened somewhat as he regarded the Hollow-girl. "Personal experience, I take it?"

Going by how Perona's body locked up in frigid fury, that was the wrong thing to say. "Get out. Of my light," she grit out through a scowl that had twisted her face, and a trio of cackling Negative Hollows slowly started to orbit around her hand. "Or I will make you idiots wish you were never even conceived, let alone born."

For a moment, the trio stood stock still. As it turned out, that was a moment too long.

Perona snarled murderously, her eyes rolling up into blankness. "You asked for it."

-o-

From her position on the quarterdeck, Merry was well-positioned to both monitor the sea ahead and catch the first screams wafting up from the main deck below. Curious, she quickly confirmed that she could leave the helm at least briefly, and left the wheel to go poke her head over the railing.

She was thus just in time to see Donny, carrying a sloshing barrel of water, and Chopper, carrying Brook's still-undead head, run below her in a panic, all three screaming their, ah, heads off. The cackling, grinning specters heading after them answered the question forming in her mind before it was asked. She blinked a couple of times before sighing fondly and leaning against the stand holding the wheel up.

"This crew never ceases to amaze, do they, Big Bro?"

A soft purring vibrated beneath her fingers and feet, causing her smile to grow. She made to head back to the helm, only for a familiar sound to cause her to head significantly faster in the opposite direction.

"Puru puru puru puru! AW, dang it!" Soundbite groused, his ringing drawing the ire of everyone else under the tree he and Cross were under. "For once, THEIR TIMING—Puru puru puru puru!—bites."

"Well, if you really wanna split hairs, you're the only one who really needs to go," Lassoo snorted dismissively. "I've got an idea for a new attack I'd like to try out."

"I've… got one, too, actually," Funkfreed said tentatively. "And I think you'll like it, Cross."

"BLOW IT OUT YOUR TAILPIPE, flea-bag, I've got something up my—Puru puru puru puru!—shell too, and you'll wanna hear it SEEING AS IT—Puru puru puru puru!—INVOLVES YOU LUGS! THE SNAIL STAYS!"

The tactician glanced between his partners, visibly hesitating. "I… suppose I could skip one call…?"

And that was when Merry decided to intervene. "Orrrr you could rely on someone else for a change!" she called down in a 'what an idiot' kind of tone.

The quartet all blinked and looked up at her in surprise. "Huh?" Cross questioned. "What are you—?"

"It's easy: Soundbite can shunt the call over to Brain and I'll handle them! If your input's critical, Soundbite can still hear me if he needs to. If not, no harm lost! Easy, right?"

"Hmm…" Merry watched as Cross visibly chewed on his cheek. After a moment of thought, he looked up at Merry. "Anything well-and-truly critical—"

"Five alarm call-out, on the double!" Merry agreed, saluting. "…I'm being literal, I can trigger five alarms at once from the lounge."

"…eh, alright, fine then," Cross sighed, snapping his fingers. "Soundbite, can you—?"

"PATCHED THROUGH—Puru puru—klack!—NOW, TO BRAIN IN THE LOUNGE! HAVE FUN, GIVE 'EM HELL!"

"Got it! See ya!" Merry said with a grin, giving them all a final wave before kicking open a trapdoor right below her and dropping into one of the many boltholes she'd installed in her Big Bro.

As Merry clambered through her personal passageway, she reveled in the sense of sheer exclusivity she always felt when she used them. The network stretched everywhere throughout the ship, but they were damn small; Chopper's antlers and the Dugongs' blubber meant that even they couldn't enter, leaving only the shipgirl and Su at the right size and physical capability to properly navigate them. It wasn't purely hers, true, but Merry could think of worse comrades to share her network with (She liked Robin well enough, loved her even, but if that woman's incessant patting of her head resulted in a bald spot…) than the cloud fox.

After a minute of travel, Merry emerged into the Aquarium Lounge. Once she confirmed that the room was indeed empty of any of her crewmates, and in fact of any living thing besides herself, Brain, and the large octopus lounging in an upturned helmet at the bottom of the tank, she sealed the room with a quick knock on the wall and loped up to the ringing chubby snail sitting on one of the tables.

She had just been reaching for the receiver when she paused and, after a moment of thought, adopted a devilish grin that she quickly banished in favor of her cutest look possible. It was with this cute look that she clicked Brain's button. "You've reached Minnie's Maid Service Manor! How may I help you, Master?"

"Bwuh—!? Er, ah, I-I-I am so sorry, I think I have the wrong number—!"

"MWAHAHAHAHA!" Merry burst out cackling at the poleaxed expression the snail was wearing by proxy. "Now I see why Cross does this so often, it's hi-i-ilarious! MWAHAHAHAHA!"

Brain's gobsmacked look suddenly swapped to deadpan. "And now you see why I wanted you to be the first on the line instead of me."

"HAHA—eh?" Merry's laughter cut off in a confused blink. "Wait, Tashigi? But if I didn't prank you, then who—?"

"Ah, t-this is Lieu—geh, force of habit… Seaman First Class 'Ironfist' Fullbody. I, ah… I actually ran into your crew back in the East Blue. Do you… remember me?"

Merry's grin creaked into wooden brittleness, and her fingernails started to dig into the table's veneer. "You mean do I remember the raging asshole who tried to sink me on a whim in order to impress the bimbo he was carting around? Even though my crew didn't have a single bounty to its name at the time?" The shipgirl's grin started twitching murderously. "I think I might have a vague recollection of you."

"…I never thought I'd be un-happy to be remembered," Fullbody gulped audibly, glancing very nervously to the side.

"We'll discuss this later, Seaman," Lieutenant Junior-Grade Tashigi frigidly informed him. "Alright, moving on from what was even less funny than I expected, Cottonmouth, is Ophiuchus there?"

"Indisposed with training, along with Knucker and pretty much everyone else except Callie." Merry informed her. "I mean, I could get them if you need them, but—"

"It… depends," Tashigi said hesitantly. "This is a status report for the most part, though there is one thing I'd like to get his input on if possible, just to see if he knows anything about it."

"Priorities first, what may or may not need his know-how?" Merry inquired.

"Ah, ahem! That's actually why I'm here!" Fullbody offered. "As you'll recall, my superior, Captain 'Black Cage' Hina, wasn't available for the last meeting of the Masons that was convened. The reason for that, and the reason why I'm here now instead of her, is that at the moment, Captain Hina and the rest of the Black Cage Formation are on an assignment in the East Blue, investigating something rather… disturbing."

The shipgirl cocked her eyebrow. "In what way, exactly?"

"Picowana Island," the Seaman started solemnly. "Up until, as near as we can estimate, a month ago, it was an uninhabited tropical island. No valuable resources, no notable native species, just jungle and not much else of interest. And then, a month ago, somebody or something destroyed it."

Merry couldn't help but swallow slightly, a sheen of cold sweat coming into being on the back of her neck. "…care to, ah, clarify that statement a bit?"

"The island itself is still there, if that's what you're asking, the physical rock has not been touched… but that's essentially all that remains." Fullbody's gaze became somewhat haunted. "It was… I'm honestly at a loss to describe it. The entire island, the whole of the jungle, was savaged. Trees were uprooted, crushed, sliced to pieces, the animals were all ripped to shreds in every way imaginable, blood was everywhere, and that was the conventional damage. Some tracts of land were burnt to cinders, there were dozens of animal skeletons that looked like they'd been picked clean, and there were even several swamps of literal poison bubbling away! The carnage, it was just…" Fullbody slowly shook his head. "It was absolute in ways I've never seen before."

"Holy hell…" Merry breathed softly.

"We wanted to ask Cross if he knew anything about this," Tashigi picked up, voice solemn. "We know this isn't technically Mason business, but we—the Marines, that is—have no idea what caused or could have caused that kind of destruction, and we want to find it before it can do so again on another island or, God forbid, one that's actually inhabited."

"No, I understand, and I'm sure Cross would too…" Merry slowly nodded before transitioning to a shake. "But… while I'll pass this on to Cross, I'm afraid he won't have anything to contribute."

Tashigi grimaced unhappily. "You're sure about that?"

Merry let out a slight 'bah' of apology. "Cross said our next destination was the Sabaody Archipelago, and that as far as he knows, we're not due for any more big fights for awhile. I'm pretty sure that if he knew anything about this, he'd have said. So, either this is something totally new or, more likely, it's something that came up outside of his Straw Hat-centric scope of knowledge. And if that really is the case…"

"He'll have jack to tell us, right, right," Tashigi nodded reluctantly before heaving a sigh. "Damn, and I was just getting used to getting anything other than a few vague, unsatisfying answers out of him… bah!" She shook her head and nodded again, this time with determination blazing in her eyes. "Whatever! We did fine without Cross in the past and we'll be fine now! We Marines have our pride too, you know!"

"Aye-aye, Lieutenant!" Fullbody concurred eagerly.

"You go, four-eyes!" Merry pumped her fist encouragingly.

Tashigi maintained her prideful expression for a minute or so. Then, she blinked in honest surprise. "Wait… so… you're not going to point out some eensy weensy flaw in my logic or jab another hole in my uniform and let all the air out of my renewed confidence and pride in my flag?"

"Uhhh… nnnoooo?"

"…I've gotta call while Cross is away more often, I don't think I've ever been on the line with you guys for so long without wanting to stab something before."