OP: My Aircraft Carrier Evolves#92+93: Loguetown, Ace's Infiltration! Bartolomeo and the Symphony of Slaughter!

The father had already departed from this world.

Even before his child could draw its first breath, he had been put to death by the Marines.

All that remained was the woman who would be a mother, and the unborn child within her.

The truth of the father's identity had to remain a secret—known to no one.

To protect the child in her womb, she went into seclusion in the village that had raised her.

And so, hidden from the world, a new life quietly entered it.

Baterilla, South Blue.

What a cruel twist of fate.

On this small island, she gave birth to the child who inherited the blood of the Pirate King.

—————————

The first light of dawn was breaking over Loguetown as a ship slipped quietly into the harbor.

The Black Spade jolly roger that should have been flying from its mast had been taken down—at the strong insistence of Ace’s first mate, Deuce.

It had been three months since Ace set sail on the first of January.

He’d been shipwrecked on a deserted island where he met Deuce, and in a stroke of luck, ate a Devil Fruit that gave him command of infinite flames.

After breaking free from the island, he had drifted through the East Blue, fighting pirates, capturing their ship, and gathering a crew.

Now, at last, they had arrived at the final stop before the Grand Line.

Loguetown.

Haunted by the terrifying legends of the Grand Line and Reverse Mountain, they decided to make a brief stop in Loguetown to rest and restock—to prepare for the unknown fate that awaited them.

"Hey, Ace—don't do anything reckless."

"The commander of this town is a Marine Headquarters Captain named Smoker. He's not one of the incompetent fools from the branch bases. Generally speaking, an officer from Headquarters is at least two or three ranks stronger than someone of the same rank from a branch."

Deuce was fretting like a worried father, terrified the hot-headed fool would stir up some new mess.

This time, Ace didn't brush him off with his usual arrogant indifference.

Deuce looked up.

Ace was standing at the prow, his gaze fixed on the town.

The place where the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, was executed. The final resting place of the demon he carried on his back.

In that moment, Deuce sensed a struggle within Ace, a pain like a destructive fire consuming him from the inside.

Did the ever-grinning Ace have moments like this?

Or was there a pain hidden beneath that smile, a pain so deep that even he couldn't see it?

—————————

Over the past three months, the Black Spade Pirates had defeated four minor pirate crews. Ace, in a fit of impulsiveness, had also sunk two Marine warships.

He now had a bounty on his head.

Because of this, they had been forced to sneak into the harbor at dawn, hiding among the fleet of merchant ships. They had even thrown a heavy tarp over their captured vessel as an extra precaution.

"Mihar, you stay with the ship," Deuce said. "Ace, Skull, we'll go ashore in a bit. We need to get everything we need in one day."

Mihar and Skull were two companions Ace had "picked up" along the way.

Mihar was a teacher, his dream to travel the world and bring education to children who had none.

Skull was a self-proclaimed "collector," a pirate fanatic who collected anything and everything related to them. He was so obsessed that he would often sneak onto pirate ships and end up as a cabin boy until the ship reached the next port.

He had snuck onto Ace's ship and been caught. He claimed to have traveled to countless ports around the world on all sorts of vessels.

Ace, seeing the value in his experience and knowledge, believed he had the potential to become a great informant.

Skull, moved at having his talents finally recognized, had sworn to become the world's greatest intelligence operative.

—————————

By the time the sun was up, Ace was already devouring a mountain of food in a local diner. The tower of empty plates on his table grew, much to the astonishment of the owner.

Deuce stuck close to Ace, terrified he would get a rush of blood to the head and decide to attack the Marine base.

It wouldn't have been the first time.

In Ace's own words: "It's the fastest way to get famous, to make the world notice me. It's how I'll surpass the Pirate King and become the man at the top!"

Ace was desperate for fame. And the name "Roger" was his trigger.

Suddenly, a crowd of people rushed past on the street outside.

"Hey! What's going on?" one of the other patrons asked, grabbing a passerby.

"A ship just came in from the Grand Line! It's docked at the harbor! They say it's full of rare and exotic goods!"

"For real?"

"Yeah! Porcelain from the West Blue, seafood from the North Blue, cured meats from the South Blue, perfume from Paradise..."

"All the big merchants and auction house managers are heading over there! Anything you can get your hands on is pure profit!"

As the place of Roger's execution, Loguetown was a popular tourist destination, and its people were used to seeing exotic goods from all over the Four Blues. They had a good eye for quality and knew the value of the items being described.

To be able to resell them on other islands in the East Blue would mean a massive profit.

Hearing this, even the diner owner couldn't sit still. He ripped off his apron. "Hey! I'm going to check it out!"

"Me too! Me too!"

As Deuce stared in amazement, Ace, having wiped his plates clean, let out a satisfied sigh. "Ah, I'm stuffed!"

He grinned, then grabbed Deuce by the arm. "Let's go, too!"

"Hey! You haven't paid—" the owner's wife called out.

But Ace and Deuce were already gone.

—————————

The harbor.

As the ship of a king from an affiliated nation, it had a VIP berth.

A line of Germa 66 clone soldiers held back the surging crowd.

Law and Doruyanaika—one holding his cursed sword, the other a rifle—stood guard on either side of the gangplank like a pair of temple guardians.

After being taken by Jin, Doruyanaika had been "educated" by his "Fist of Love" and had come to accept her new reality. She had grown up in the slums, and her personality was as fiery as her temper. She had the air of a gang boss, and it was enough to keep the crowd in check.

Maya held up a megaphone. "This vessel is only open to high-volume clients! A deposit of ten million Berries is required to board! Once on board, you must purchase at least ten million Berries worth of goods! Otherwise, the deposit is non-refundable! Those with the means, please form a line over there!"

<><><><><><><><>

A wave of murmurs and gasps went through the crowd.

"A ten million Berri deposit just to get on board?"

"And you don't get it back if you don't buy enough?"

"Isn't that just robbery?"

"Heh. With a business model like that, who's going to buy from them?"

"So arrogant!"

But then, their eyes fell on the items displayed along the ship's rail, and their jaws dropped.

"That vase... it's exquisite! That pattern... could it be the unique porcelain of the Kano Country in the West Blue?"

"I've only ever seen something like that in the royal treasury! A single piece is said to be worth over a hundred million Berries!"

"And that... is that top-grade beef from the South Blue?"

"Hey... what's that incredible smell? Is that perfume? From Nanohana?"

The array of high-quality goods captivated the town's merchants. When the potential for profit was this great, what was ten million Berries?

The world economy was in a slump. The poor were getting poorer.

But the rich were getting richer.

The merchants with the capital to spare quickly formed a line and were led onto the ship's specially designed exhibition deck.

All the goods were clearly priced. No haggling. Take it or leave it.

Dammit!

The merchants cursed inwardly. They'd never seen such an arrogant seller. But the goods... they were just too good to pass up.

Top-grade. Everything was top-grade. Even better than the official shipments from the Marines.

If you didn't buy, someone else would.

But Jin's business model was a clear provocation to the established interests of the town, and a source of intense envy.

Some of the merchants, seething, turned and left.

Soon, a mob of over a hundred thugs began to emerge from the side streets, gradually converging on the main avenue, all of them falling in behind a young man with a rooster-comb haircut.

"Big Bro Bartolomeo! Those guys from the Grand Line... they're completely disrespecting us!"

"YEAH!"

"Everyone knows the score—you wanna do business in Loguetown, you pay the Barto Club a 'management fee'!"

"Their goods are seriously messing with the market prices! If they're selling the good stuff, how are our shops supposed to compete?"

"Exactly! They've got better stuff, but they're selling it at the same price as us! If we have to lower our prices, we'll lose money!"

"They have to sell their goods to us! Let us handle the distribution! That's how it's done!"

The mob was a cacophony of angry voices. Among them were some of the town's shopkeepers, the ones who couldn't afford the ten million Berri deposit and had to find another way.

They had gone to Bartolomeo. He was the leader of a gang that controlled over 150 streets in Loguetown.

The merchants paid him a "management fee" every month. When it mattered, he was supposed to step up.

"Hey! What's with all the damn chatter? One more word out of you lot and I'll toss you in the sea to feed the fishes."

Bartolomeo, picking his ear, swaggered forward, whistling, a look of utter contempt on his face.

He had a green, rooster-comb mohawk, a tattoo under his right eye, and a ring in his nose that made him look like a demon. A black, winged, half-ring tattoo was emblazoned on his chest. He wore a purple coat with a skull on the back, plaid trousers, and a short sword at his waist.

He hadn't been listening to a word they'd said.

He strode forward with a swagger that dared the world to look him in the eye.

The mob of a hundred grew as it moved through the streets, a black tide that sent pedestrians scrambling out of the way. It was like a scene from a movie—one signal, and a thousand soldiers appear.

They arrived at the docks.

The crowd, having already heard that the scoundrel Bartolomeo was coming, had parted, watching from a safe distance. Deuce grabbed Ace and pulled him out of the way.

Law looked up slightly.

Doruyanaika stared.

Bartolomeo cupped his hands around his mouth.

"OI!" he roared. "YOU LOT ON THE SHIP! HAND OVER EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! OR ELSE... I'LL SINK YOUR DAMN SHIP, YEAH!"

His speech was laced with a thick local dialect, and he added a "yeah" to the end of every sentence.

Doruyanaika frowned. A local gang?

"I suggest you leave," Law said, his voice calm, a good-natured warning. "Don't make things difficult for yourself, local boss."

Jin wasn't on the ship. He had taken a gift box and gone to the Marine base to see Smoker.

If he were here, a lot of people would be ending up in the boiler.

That king... he seemed gentle, but when it came to killing pirates, he was utterly ruthless. He had already sent more than twenty pirate crews to their graves.

"WHAT?!" Bartolomeo cocked his head, cupping a hand to his ear. "I couldn't hear you! What did you just say? Make things difficult for ME?"

"HEHAHAHA...!" he roared with laughter.

He turned his back to Law and faced his men.

"Smash their goods and sink their ship!" he bellowed. "Show these bastards what happens when you disrespect me!"

"YEAH!"

His men were already itching for a fight. The goods on that ship were worth a fortune. If they could take them, they would.

"KILL THEM!"

"CHARGE!"

The mob was no longer just the Barto Club. The pirates and bounty hunters who had been hiding in the town, all hoping to get a piece of the action, had joined in.

A force of four or five hundred men charged the ship, ready to smash, grab, and get everything for free.

"Hey, Law! What now?" Doruyanaika felt her scalp tingle at the sound of hundreds of running feet. She swallowed hard.

Law was calm, his hand still resting on his sword.

"My, my," Ai's voice chirped from the ship's speakers. "It seems we're being underestimated."

And then, the music began...

Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory—the fourth movement, the Symphony of Triumph.

"What's that sound?" Deuce said, looking at the ship. "Is that... music?"

"There's a monster over there," Ace said, his gaze fixed on the ship.

"A monster?" Deuce was confused. "What monster?"

He didn't feel anything.

On the side of the ship facing the port, a series of holes, large and small, like a honeycomb, appeared without a sound.

Law, sensing the change, grabbed Doruyanaika by the back of her collar and leaped back onto the main deck.

The moment they landed...

DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA!

Muzzles flashed. A wall of lead tore through the air, a swarm of angry hornets descending on the crowd.

Then came the larger cannons.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The sound was like thunder, echoing through Loguetown. The cannons were firing grapeshot.

Iron balls, packed with gunpowder and shrapnel, designed to explode in a fan-shaped pattern a second or two after leaving the barrel, causing massive area-of-effect damage.

Ten thousand guns, a hundred cannons, all firing at once from within the "fortress." The sheer density of the fire was terrifying.

And they were so close.

Even with flintlocks, accuracy was irrelevant.

The moment the guns roared, the people at the front of the mob were torn to shreds by the wall of lead.

Not a single recognizable piece of them remained.

Blood erupted from the bodies like burst watermelons, atomizing into a fine, crimson mist that mingled with the gunsmoke and fell upon the street like a bloody rain.

A warm splash hit Deuce’s cheek. He didn’t even register it. He was completely, utterly frozen in shock.

How could a scene be this horrific?

After the first volley, the four or five hundred people were like stalks of wheat cut down by a scythe. The ones at the front had been torn to shreds. Those behind them, shielded by the bodies of their comrades, were in slightly better shape.

But almost all of them had been hit.

Some of them weren't dead yet, and their screams and wails filled the air.

Of course, some of the stronger, more cunning ones had used others as shields and had survived.

But the scene... it was a massacre.

Even the survivors didn't dare to move. Some of them had pissed themselves in terror.

The entire dock was silent.

Only the triumphant strains of the symphony, mingling with the blood mist and the gunsmoke, drifted through the air.

Doruyanaika's throat was dry. The hair on her arms was standing on end. The ship had this kind of firepower?!

She was suddenly very grateful that she still had some value. Otherwise... her little gang's four city blocks wouldn't have been enough to satisfy its appetite.

Law looked calm, but a single drop of sweat trickled down his forehead.

Maya, her kind heart unable to bear the suffering, raised her sniper rifle and put the screaming men out of their misery.

She had been with Jin for a long time. She had seen good and evil. She knew that some people were just born bad, that they couldn't be saved. She also knew that some villains could change, but that most would just keep doing evil.

And when you couldn't tell the difference...

The king had said that the greatest kindness you can show to a villain, a brute, is to send them on to their next life. Maybe they'd be a better person then.

"Alright, you idiots! Get to work!" Ai's voice blared from the speakers. The Germa 66 clone soldiers began to clean the battlefield.

"YOU BASTARDS!" a furious roar came from a pile of bodies. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MEN?!"

The bodies were thrown aside.

Bartolomeo stood there, a barrier shimmering in front of him.

A few dozen of his men were huddled behind him, protected by his power.

The Paramecia Barrier-Barrier Fruit.

It was the reason Bartolomeo was able to rule over 150 city blocks.

Seeing the carnage, the bodies of his men, hearing their dying screams, an uncontrollable rage burned in his eyes.

It had all happened so fast. In his arrogance, he hadn't raised his barrier until after the guns had started firing.

But it had all been over in less than two seconds. He had only had time to protect the men behind him.

Seeing the Germa 66 clone soldiers taking away the bodies of his men, Bartolomeo's eyes turned blood-red.

"STOP!" he roared. "Barrier Crash!"

The attack sent seven or eight of the clone soldiers flying.

Then, he charged toward the ship, his mind consumed with a single thought: to destroy it completely.

"BIG BRO BARTOLOMEO!" his men screamed from behind him.