Chapter 102: The Planeswalker’s Pact and the Echoes of Goa

[Robin’s POV]

From my quiet vantage point on the plush velvet sofa of the Titan’s Glory lounge, I found a deep, quiet comfort in observing the shifting dynamics of our crew.

As an archaeologist, my trade was in reading what was left unspoken, the subtle tells in posture, the shifting of eyes, the spaces between words. Our ship was a melting pot of amazing, chaotic anomalies. Across the room, Baby 5 was enthusiastically explaining the mechanical schematics of her missile-leg to a completely bewildered Ace. Law was leaning against the wall, pretending to read a medical journal while subtly listening to Bepo ramble about the lush, ancient forests of Zou.

At the center table, our Captain was engaged in a ruthless game of Monopoly.

“That’s illegal,” Gwen complained, crossing her arms and glaring fiercely at the board. The black-and-white symbiote pooled over her shoulder, forming a tiny, frustrated face that perfectly mirrored her own expression.

“It’s not illegal,” Victor countered smoothly, moving his silver token across the board. “It’s called strategy, Gwen. You can’t just put hotels on Boardwalk and expect me not to monopolize the railroads.”

“You’re a pirate!” Gwen groaned, throwing her hands up. “You shouldn’t be good at real estate!”

Before Victor could defend his capitalistic tactics, a specific, high-frequency ringtone pierced the relaxed atmosphere of the lounge. Buru buru buru…

It wasn’t our standard comms. It was the heavily encrypted, golden Den Den Mushi sitting on the mahogany bar, the secure line strictly reserved for our top-tier underworld contacts.

Victor set his dice down. The playful smirk vanished, replaced by his unbreakable calm of a Warlord. He walked over to the bar and picked up the receiver.

“Victor speaking,” he answered.

“Long time no see, Warlord,” a smooth, smoky voice drifted from the speaker. The snail immediately shifted its appearance, manifesting a chic bob cut and mimicking the action of holding a cigarette.

“Shakky,” Victor smiled, instantly recognizing the legendary intelligence broker of the Sabaody Archipelago. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Tell me Rayleigh isn’t gambling himself away again.”

“Rayleigh is fine,” Shakky chuckled, though her tone quickly shifted to something much more serious and urgent. “I’m calling because the winds are shifting here on the Archipelago, Victor. And knowing you, I have some amazing, highly urgent news that you’re going to want to hear immediately.”

I set my teacup down, my full attention now on the Warlord.

“I’m listening,” Victor said, leaning against the bar.

“The Marines just stationed two new high-ranking officers here to manage the rookie influx,” Shakky explained, the sound of a struck match echoing over the line. “One goes by the name of Rear Admiral Hototoguisu, and the other is Commodore Aliester. They butt heads on absolutely everything. The only thing they agree on is their violent hatred for you. They’ve been arresting civilians just for saying something positive about the Verdant Abyss in passing.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of the names. The crew had never met a Marine named Hototoguisu, but the way Victor’s jaw set told me there was history there.

“But that’s not the interesting part,” Shakky continued. “Two notorious rookie pirate crews just arrived in Sabaody. They made quite a name for themselves right before you took the Warlord title. One is a martial artist from the Longarm Tribe called Ideo, the Destruction Cannon. The other crew is led by a brother-sister duo, the children of the former Warlord Hanafuda, Page One and Ulti. The sister, Ulti, seems to call all the shots. And both of them are looking for you.”

“Rookies looking to make a name by hunting me?” Victor guessed, swirling the dregs of his coffee. “Hardly breaking news, Shakky.”

“They aren’t just hunting you, Victor. They are obsessed,” Shakky corrected. “Here is where it gets messy. Both of these pirate crews have already clashed directly with Commodore Aliester on two different occasions. They completely leveled a slave auction house in the process. During the fights, both Ideo and Ulti were actively mocking him. They kept screaming a specific phrase at Aliester over and over.”

“What phrase?” Victor asked.

“They kept calling him ‘Raan Dhukor’.”

I saw Victor’s hand violently flinch. The heavy porcelain coffee cup in his grip let out a faint, sharp crack as it fractured under sudden, immense pressure.

Victor’s breathing stopped. The unflappable, iron-clad composure of our Captain was shattered in an instant.

“Shakky,” Victor said, a very rare, unmistakable tremble bleeding into his voice. “Did… would you say they were talking in a different language? A language no one could understand?”

“Yes,” Shakky replied, her tone turning cautious, clearly sensing the shift in the Warlord’s demeanor. “They were screaming in a language neither the Marines nor the locals recognized. How did you know that? Did someone already tip you off about these rookies, Victor? If so, I might be losing my edge.”

Victor took a slow, agonizingly deep breath, forcing his fingers to uncurl from the broken mug. Hot coffee dripped onto the bar, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“No, Shakky. You’re the first one to tell me,” Victor managed to say, forcing a strained politeness into his tone. “I just… I made an informative guess. Thank you for the intel. I’ll bring a bottle of the good stuff for you and Rayleigh when I visit next, which might be in the upcoming days.”

He cut the connection with a heavy clack.

Silence descended over the lounge. The rest of the crew had stopped what they were doing. Ace, Law, Baby 5, Gwen, Laura, everyone was staring at Victor. We had seen our Captain face down Emperors, tear apart Marines, and outsmart Warlords without batting an eye. But right now, standing by the bar, Victor looked entirely, profoundly shaken. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Captain?” Bepo asked timidly, breaking the silence. “Are you okay? Who are Ideo and Ulti?”

“Why did some random gibberish words against a Marine shock you so badly?” Perona asked, floating down from the ceiling, her parasol resting on her shoulder.

Victor didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the brass receiver of the snail. He looked at Ace, then at Law, and finally, he let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a century. He walked over to the center table, pushing the Monopoly board aside, and sank heavily into a chair.

“Have a seat, everyone,” Victor said quietly, running a hand through his hair. “I need to clarify a few things. Because, to explain why I’m so shaken by that news… I have to tell you all where I actually come from.”

I leaned forward, my archaeological instincts flaring. My heart beat a little faster against my ribs.

“I am not from this universe,” Victor stated, the words dropping like lead weights onto the deck.

The crew gasped. Ace’s jaw physically dropped.

“Now, before anyone panics, you all know what a different dimension is,” Victor continued, gesturing toward me and Law. “Robin, Law… When the three of us and Jasmine travelled to Gwen and Laura’s old universe, we saw firsthand that the multiverse is real. Well similarly, I didn’t originate here. I come from a different universe.”

“Two hundred years ago,” Victor began, his voice steadying as he fell into the rhythm of a storyteller, “a group of people from this world were targeted by the Celestial Dragons for enslavement. Before the World Nobles could ruin their lives, they were saved by a man named Damine. Damine wasn’t a pirate or a Marine. He was a Planeswalker, a person who possesses the ability to tear the fabric of reality and travel between dimensions.”

“Different dimensions…” Ace muttered, his mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the revelation.

“Damine took my ancestors to his home dimension. To my world,” Victor explained. “They travelled with him for a long time. Eventually, some chose a new world to settle down in permanently, while some came back here to live out their lives in peace. But before Damine left, he made a pact with the ancestors who chose to stay in the different world. He promised that when the ‘Drums of Liberation’ were ready to be played again in this world, he would bring their descendants back to help Joy Boy in his final fight.”

My breath hitched. Joy Boy. The ghost of the Void Century.

“Over the years, the family that stayed in my world expanded,” Victor said, a deeply sarcastic, dry smile crossing his face. “We ballooned to over a hundred and ninety members. I know the exact number because some of the elders in the family keep an obsessively exact record of every single family member. Meanwhile, in this world, the bloodline scattered across different regions. According to Damine, only five remaining direct descendants are alive here today.”

Victor looked directly at his cousins. “Ace. Law. Koala. And a mother-daughter duo up in Skypiea named Isa and Aisa.”

Ace looked like he had been hit by a cannonball, his flames sputtering in absolute shock.

“When the time came,” Victor continued, “Damine brought three people from my old world back to this one in order to fulfill his promise. Me, Victor D. Costa. My sister, Jasmine D. Costa. And our cousin… Aliester D. Silva.”

“Commodore Aliester,” I clarified softly, piecing the puzzle together.

“Yes,” Victor nodded darkly. “To make sure we didn’t die at the hands of the first pirate we saw, Damine gave each of us three unique gifts. A vial of an ingestible chemical called Compound V. An alchemical weapon called a BusoRenkin. And a Digivice.”

Victor lifted his left arm, tapping the sleek, Fitbit-like band strapped to his wrist. “For the newer folks, this is a Digivice. It connects a user to the Digital Verse. That’s how I summoned Gammamon, my best friend and partner. Jasmine got one too, she summoned Palmon.”

Victor looked around the room, making eye contact with the veteran members of the crew. “Robin, Brook, Perona, Law… you all already know about the Digivice and the Compound V because I told you what they were early on. We had to track Aliester’s items down because, thank god, that idiot lost his Digivice and his Compound V right after he got here.”

“I remember,” Law said quietly, adjusting his spotted hat. “We had to travel to East blue for them.”

“Exactly. His Digivice is locked in our secure vault right now,” Victor confirmed. “As for the Compound V, we kept it. It’s our ultimate, last-resort physical boost. Every member of this crew, except for Ace, since you just joined, currently has a synthesized vial of Compound V on them for absolute emergencies.”

Victor paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he thought back to his earliest days. “When I arrived on my starting island, I was completely alone with Gammamon. There was a severe time dilation. We spent six months on that island learning to survive, but when we finally left it and entered the sea, eighteen months had passed in the real world. That was also when I first met Hototoguisu. She had been stranded there after a maritime accident. None of you know her because it was before I formed the Verdant Abyss. I left her behind, and clearly, she re-joined the Marines and climbed the ranks and now holds a grudge.”

Victor folded his hands on the table. “That’s the hidden information about my past. I know it’s a lot. I’ll take your questions one at a time.”

The lounge erupted into a cacophony of voices.

“Me first!” Laura yelled, her adamantium claws sliding out of her knuckles with a metallic snikt in her excitement. “What was your old world like? Did you have mutants? Superheroes?”

“No,” Victor chuckled warmly. “My world was incredibly similar to the one you and Gwen came from, Laura. The technology, the cities, the culture, it was all very much like your universe, just entirely devoid of superheroes, villains, or superpowers. It was a normal, mundane earth.”

“Captain,” I spoke up, my voice cutting cleanly through the noise. “How did this Planeswalker, Damine, know that the era of Joy Boy was approaching? How could he predict the exact timing of the Drums of Liberation over two centuries in advance?”

“Damine operates on a level of reality we can’t fully comprehend, Robin,” Victor answered carefully, maintaining the integrity of his knowledge. “He didn’t read it in a book or was told by a prophet. He felt the shifting of the cosmic tides. He knew the pieces were moving into place.”

Bepo raised a timid paw. “Captain… are there Minks in your old world?”

“Just regular, non-talking animals, Bepo,” Victor smiled gently.

Baby 5 leaned over the table, her eyes wide. “Did you have cool weapons? Or Devil Fruits?”

“No Devil Fruits at all,” Victor shook his head. “We had weapons, but mostly boring, mechanical ones. Nothing like the craftsmanship here.”

Ace stepped forward, his fists clenched, his mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the revelation. “Victor… if there are over a hundred and ninety of our family members in your world, why did Damine only bring you three? And… do I have a counterpart over there?”

“He brought the three of us because we were the only ones uniquely suited to survive the transition and make a difference, at least that’s what he told me.” Victor said honestly. “The rest of them are living normal, civilian lives. And no, Ace. You’re one of a kind. There is no other Fire Fist.”

The crew continued to pepper him with questions, interrogating the boundaries of his world, the nature of Damine’s powers, and the history of their bloodline. Victor answered every single one with unwavering patience, shedding the last of his secrets. After all the questions were answered, a heavy lull settled over the deck as everyone took in the monumental information bomb.

Perona floated down until she was sitting cross-legged on the air right next to Victor.

“Okay, so you’re an interdimensional savior with a massive family,” Perona said, twirling her parasol. “That’s cool. But you still haven’t explained why the news from Shakky shocked you so badly. What was that phrase?”

Victor’s expression hardened immediately. The warmth from the Q&A session vanished.

“The words they used while taunting Aliester… ‘Raan Dhukor’,” Victor explained, his voice dropping to a serious, hushed tone. “It’s a word in a language from my old world. A language called Konkani, spoken in the place where I was born, Goa. Its literal meaning is ‘wild pig’. But it’s usually used as a harsh slang to refer to someone who is greedy or dirty.”

Victor looked at Ace and Law. “It was the specific term most of the cousins who supported my part of the family called Aliester. We called him that because he along with his family were greedy bastards who wanted everything they laid eyes on, and he would constantly start fights for absolutely no reason. Aliester despised that word. He couldn’t speak Konkani to save his life, the language they spoke mostly on his side of the family was English and Hindi.”

I felt the realization hit me like a physical strike. “The Longarm tribe,” I whispered.

“Exactly, Robin,” Victor nodded grimly. “In my old world, there is no such thing as the Longarm tribe. Furthermore, no human naturally crosses the height of seven feet. The chances of anyone named Ideo, Ulti, or Page One actually being from my world is absolute zero.”

Victor stood up, placing his hands flat on the table. “But them knowing Konkani and Hindi… and knowing to call Aliester ‘Raan Dhukor’ means only one thing. They are my cousins. And they were transmigrated to this world.”

Pin-drop silence consumed the deck. The very air felt heavy, suffocating under the weight of the implications.

Baby 5 slowly raised her hand like a nervous student in a classroom. “Um… Captain? What does ‘transmigrated’ mean?”

Everyone in the crew nodded slightly, sharing her confusion.

Victor looked at her, his eyes dark with a horrifying realization. “According to Damine, there are three ways a person can travel to another world. The first is using a portal or travel method. In this method, you go to a different world with your own physical body, exactly as you are. That’s what happened to me, Jasmine, and Aliester.”

Victor took a slow breath. “The second method is called Reincarnation. In this method, a person dies in their original world, and then is born in the other world in a brand new body, as a baby. Sometimes they keep their memories from the start, sometimes they regain them later in life, and sometimes they don’t regain them at all.”

“And the third?” Law asked, his voice tight.

“The third and final method is Transmigration,” Victor said. “This method is similar to reincarnation, in which you die in your old world. But instead of being reborn, your soul or spirit travels to a different world and occupies the body of a person already present in that world. Sometimes it’s the body of a person who recently died, meaning there is no soul left, so they just occupy the vessel. And sometimes they take over a body with a weak or damaged spirit, and merge with it, and….”

Victor stopped speaking abruptly, his jaw clenching as the sickening reality fully formed in his mind.

“Yohoho…” Brook murmured, the skeletal musician leaning heavily against his cane, his tone entirely devoid of its usual mirth. “Seeing as there are no Longarms or ancient dinosaurs in your old world… that means your cousins died in their own world before coming here.”

Ace stepped forward, his eyes wide with horror and confusion. “Victor… if this Damine guy already brought you and the other two here alive… why would he bring three more people? And why transmigrate them here? Why bring dead cousins into this world?!”

Victor opened his mouth to answer, his mind reeling as he tried to piece together Damine’s grand, terrifying puzzle.

But before he could utter a single word, a sound pierced the heavy, suffocated silence of the lounge.

Buru buru buru…

It wasn’t the golden snail. It was the white-shelled Den Den Mushi sitting on the communication console. The one with a direct, heavily encrypted connection to the Revolutionary Army.

Which meant Jasmine or Koala had just called them.

Every single person in the room snapped their heads to look at the ringing snail. The atmosphere turned instantly suffocating. Victor stared at the Den Den Mushi, a profound, sinking concern washing over his features. The echoes of his old world were bleeding into the new one, and the drums of liberation were starting to sound more like a march to war.