Chapter 69 Exposure of the Wonder Pirates
Rayleigh sat in a small cot in the cargo ship's crew quarters with an old newspaper in hand. His fight against Vice Admiral Momonga and his 'minor contribution' to driving away Wild King from Gilliad island had been compiled into a page five story. Had Captain Bogard not made him look like a toddler, it might have become a page two or three story, but the current situation still fell within the plan's expectations.
His gains from the Bogard fight were worth far more than a second-page story, since it was pointless for him to have anything but a first-page story and he already had plans for just that.
Although he lost to Bogard, the man did not tell anyone he would take Rayleigh as a student and no one in the Marines had the balls to force Vice Admiral Garp's Number Two to do anything, and since he was not technically a Vice Admiral, no one pushed for Rayleigh to join the Marines after the match.
Even though he was not a Marine, he was still able to use the good reputation he gained from the lives saved on Gilliad and Goddess of Ice's recommendation to board this ship that would be robbed by Wonder Woman in a couple of hours.
With his previous entry in the news ensuring that he was no longer a no name, his next entry should be able to reach the first page. Of course, he would still ask Wonder Woman to give up the attack without a fight. If she really agreed, Rayleigh's ability to drive off the Wonder Pirates without a fight should still be a page two story, but he'd still need to get a front page entry as a swordsman to fulfill the conditions that Mihawk's tutelage required. That being said, Rayleigh did not feel he would need a plan B, since everything about Wonder Woman's personality showed that she was willful to the extreme.
Wonder Woman, just like Titan, Dragon Chef, and himself, was an Enhancer. She did not have a devil fruit but according to Goddess of Ice, she had the highest Haki and Nen proficiency in this half of the Grand Line and practiced a Vibration based Martial Art that heavily amplified the damage of every one of her punches. Considering how active she was, Wonder Woman also had the most live combat experience on this half of the Grand Line. Dyna Might picked a fight with her a few months ago and got One-Shotted. His explosions could not even leave a scratch through her Armament Haki and Ren.
There was of course something nagging at him. It really seemed like Wonder Woman was strong enough to survive in the second half of the Grand Line. So why was she staying here, robbing things? It would be one thing if she challenged the Vice Admirals for combat experience, but she always fled when one showed up, only beating up Rear Admirals and leaving them alive. It was obvious that she was avoiding the attention of the Admirals by pretending to run from the Vice Admirals, but why bother?
If it was another kind of Player, then Rayleigh wouldn't find it odd, but since Wonder Woman was an Enhancer, she should have the same drive to fight strong opponents since Enhancers got stronger after such fights. That meant she had to be after something that had more value than a good fight.
With his curiosity peaked, Rayleigh got up from his cot and did something he was told, practically at gunpoint, not to do when he got on the ship. He went to the Cargo hold.
Rayleigh erased his presence using Zetsu and Force Stealth. He was still visible, but not noticeable. After walking down a few flights of stairs, he passed by some men in suits that did not look like pushovers. They did not talk or pass the time speaking to each other, they simply stood and stared, so their attention could not be diverted as easily.
Before either could say anything, Rayleigh connected to the pair using his Empathy and said, "Nothing to see, nothing is wrong, go about your business." Rayleigh then made himself feel apathetic, calm, and disinterested, something he then transmitted to the pair using Mind Trick as he walked past them.
Both lost interest in him as he walked past their line of sight, which made them lose awareness of him thanks to his Force Stealth and lack of a presence.
After turning another corner and a long hall, Rayleigh found the inner ship entrance of the cargo bay. When the ship docked, the exterior of the ship would be opened to quickly unload the cargo, but inside the ship, this was the only entrance to this space while sailing.
The entrance had a very formidable looking lock on a metal door with a metal frame on what he now recognized as a metal wall disguised as a wooden one. Now that was interesting. He didn't feel the presence of any life on the other side, so there were no guards or slaves within, but what required so much security?
Rayleigh held the lock and used Psychometry. He saw the lock being set on the door, he saw the shape of the key, and he even saw the lock being assembled. Since he knew the internal mechanism, he could easily use some Telekinesis to shift the hidden pieces and unlock the bolt without needing to turn the tumbler or set the pins.
A usage of Force Muffle ensured that the popping of the lock and the opening of the door was not heard by others. When Rayleigh peered inside, he saw hundreds of rolls of silk. Was that it?
Not convinced, Rayleigh used telekinesis to move the rolls of silk and in doing so, revealed the giant, silk covered cube hidden behind the massive piles. Another usage of telekinesis removed the sheet and a massive cube made of some sort of bluish stone could be seen. On a single side was a large amount of unrecognizable symbols carved into the surface.
Not being able to resist, Rayleigh touched the cube with the intention of using Psychometry, but the moment he did, a Pop-Up message appeared in his Player Interface.
[You have Discovered an Easter Egg, the Instructional Poneglyph #3. As the first Player to touch it, a Treasure Map has been deposited into your Inventory. The Map cannot be returned to the Inventory once removed. In addition to the treasure, the first Player to find the treasure located on the Treasure Map will be awarded 10,000 Mission Points.]
Eh? This thing was an Easter Egg like the Tho Yors of Typhon? Rayleigh tried using Psychometry on the stone, but the information he could receive was being blocked. He tried using Shatterpoint to see the block's weak point, but even that was being blocked. It seemed that the Tavern didn't want Players to spoil the mystery of this thing so easily.
Rayleigh considered copying the lines of text on the stone, but he doubted he'd be able to do anything with them, so he returned the silk sheet over the block, set all the silk rolls back where they were, and exited the room, leaving it exactly like he had found it.
Another use of Mind Trick allowed Rayleigh to pass the guards a second time without being noticed or questioned, and he only started thinking about the Easter Egg after returning to his cot.
At least that explained why Wonder Woman was coming. With his current strength, Rayleigh could pass a 500~700 Point Tavern Mission a week as long as he didn't get unlucky, and he doubted many Players could say the same since he had a lot of advantages like his Psychometry for investigations and his speed for travel and escape. Even for him, 10,000 points would take four months to accumulate, so it wasn't a small sum. Mission Points could be used to purchase Easy Masteries, convert items into Inventory Items, and use the Player's Arena.
Maybe the reason Wonder Woman stayed in the shallow end of the kiddy pool was to find these Easter Eggs and use the points to fight in the Arena. A fight in the Arena was only really expensive the first time you purchased it. If Rayleigh paid to fight Netero again, it would only cost a fraction of the initial price since Rayleigh already knew most of Netero's skills. If he ever fought Netero and got him to go all out, revealing all of his skills, then the price of fighting him would be even cheaper.
For all Rayleigh knew, Wonder Woman could be sparring with Garp, the Admirals, and the Four Emperors of the New World every day. If that was the case, everything would make sense.
Of course, it was also possible that she was wasting points on frivolous and useless crap, but Rayleigh didn't think that was possible.
Rayleigh wondered if the other Players knew about these Easter Eggs. He recalled that the Player Shadowcat was a thief who could move through walls, so she might have discovered it.
After pondering for a bit, Rayleigh arrived at the most likely scenario. The guys in suits were agents of the World Government, so they were the ones responsible for moving these blocks. As for why they were being moved, Rayleigh guessed that it was Shadowcat's fault. If they discovered that someone who could swim through walls was looking for these things, then no amount of security was enough. They had to be moved, perhaps regularly.
So how did Wonder Woman know that this block would be moved on this ship on this day? Rayleigh had some suspicions. If he was right, then Wonder Woman would abort the attack without even appearing, so the show of him driving them away would never be seen.
Thankfully, Rayleigh had a way to ensure that didn't happen. He started reciting his Force Code. After some trial and error, Rayleigh figured that if he devoted sixteen Wills to reciting his Force Code at the same time, he only needed to recite it twice instead of three times. Once he had thirty-two Wills, he could devote them all to reciting the code and only need to recite it a single time to materialize the Empty Sword or the Sword of Babylon. Not useable during battle at the moment, but better than nothing for now.
Once the Empty Sword materialized in Rayleigh's hands, he automatically entered his Second Stage Zetsu, completely cutting himself off from the Force and his Aura. Why do this? Because it also had the effect of making him practically invisible to Clairvoyants and Precogs.
Several hours later, a High-Speed Luxury Yacht could be seen speeding toward the direction of the Cargo ship and the pair of Marine Vessels guarding it.
Wonder Woman sat in a comfortable chair lounging in the sun and looked to the side to see the other two Players in her crew. A skinny girl with her black hair tied into a ponytail played on a cellphone. It didn't have a signal but it did have a lot of games that worked without one. Next to her was a teen with long, auburn hair flowing in the wind and staring off into the distance. Wonder Woman asked her, "Do you See any problems?"
This girl was in fact the person that had once peeped on Rayleigh's free Nen lessons. She had never revealed her Nen type or talked to anyone but Rayleigh, but she was currently a part of the Wonder Pirates and the source of their good fortune, both figuratively and literally.
The Player who called herself the All Seeing Prophet and possessor of the Glare Glare fruit was one of the five Players who decided to specialize themselves into a support role capable of predicting the future. When Wonder Woman asked her if she saw any problems, All Seeing Prophet's eyes glowed as she answered, "No. I see a dozen CP8 Operatives and some merchants with weapons. I don't see any of them resisting or being a problem after the Cipher Pol Agents are taken care of."
Wonder Woman smiled back at the good news and ordered her helmswoman full speed ahead. All Seeing Prophet had been having trouble seeing the details of the heist for the last few days and Wonder Woman had been tempted to call it off. All Seeing Prophet's predictions were sketchy against those stronger than she was, but it looked like there wasn't anything to worry about. Wonder Woman would have to return to the Hunter World to refuel the ship and recharge everyone's cellphones, but that was a quick day trip and something she was very used to by now. The best part was that the contents of the fridge counted as a part of the ship, so as long as it was food, she could also take the delicious food from the Hunter World to this world by stuffing the yacht's fridge before returning the Ship to her Inventory.
While everyone else in this world suffered the lack of modern luxuries like cavemen camping outdoors without tents, she was Glamping with her million dollar RV, enjoying nature and adventure without actually getting dirty.
When Rayleigh spotted the Yacht speeding towards the ship, he really had to do a double take. How many Mission Points must that thing have cost to convert into an Inventory Item?
Wonder Woman's 'Pirate Ship' was very distinctive and well known by the Marines at this point. Rayleigh never asked about it so he hadn't known. There had been attempts to destroy it, but Glitter stayed on the ship and used Shū whenever it was attacked, granting it a high resistance to bullets and cannons for the short duration that her heists took place.
The luxury yacht only had ten crew members and there was an open space in the back large enough to fit the Poneglyph. Technically Wonder Woman did not need to steal it to get the Treasure Map, but she didn't want the World Government to know that. Rayleigh was curious about what she did with them afterward since she had to have at least two or three already with all the heists she tried over the last year.
The Yacht pulled up along side the cargo ship and multiple men in fancy suits started using Moon Walk and Storm Leg to attack the ship and crew while others pulled out lines of rifles and opened fire. The girl Rayleigh recognized as Glitter had become a human diamond and her Shū was covering the ship, protecting it from the attacks. Being in Zetsu increased Rayleigh's sensitivity to aura, so he could feel that the attacks on the aura surrounding the ship seemed to be redirecting their force to Glitter. Some kind of damage transfer Hatsu? An interesting idea for an indestructible woman.
Wonder Woman jumped from the deck of the yacht to the cargo ship and started punching and kicking the Cipher Pol Agents, knocking them out and breaking the guns of the Merchants on deck.
Rayleigh removed the Kyber Crystal from his leather bracelet and pushed it to the normal looking long sword in his hand.
Sensing something was about to happen, All Seeing Prophet and Wonder Woman both looked over at Rayleigh as they watched him smile and say aloud, "Split the Heavens, Sword of Babylon."
Rayleigh instantly shifted from his Second Stage Zetsu state to a state of using Overdrive, Babylon, and Heart of the Sword.
Now recognizing the sixteen-year-old Rayleigh she had not seen in a few years, All Seeing Prophet got a measure of him and said aloud, "Fuck."
Glitter asked, "Is that Swordsman? Wonder Woman can beat him, right?"
All Seeing Prophet didn't answer. She had been to the Jedi Galaxy while making her Measurement Hatsu and could get a read-out of a Player's Stats in Nen, Haki, the Force, and Physique. Swordsman's Haki was at zero, his Nen was a little higher than Wonder Woman's, and his Physique was outrageous, but it was his Force connection that caught her off guard. She had Seen and Measured several Jedi Players and Jedi Masters and Rayleigh's Force stat was on the level of a Jedi Master, far above any Player. Since he did not have a Master Apprentice Force Bond to accelerate his connection to the Force, she didn't understand how Rayleigh's presence in the Force was so high.
Wonder Woman did not hear All Seeing Prophet's expletive and said, "What are you doing here Swordsman?" The threat in her tone made it clear that there would be consequences if the answer was not to her liking.
Rayleigh replied, "Ah, I'm guarding this ship. You, Glitter, and that other Player still owe me a favor, right? Please leave and forget about robbing this ship."
A selective usage of Force Muffle ensured that the merchants, Marines, and Reporter on deck only heard the first and last sentence Rayleigh spoke, making them aware that he was telling the Wonder Pirates to get lost.
Wonder Woman narrowed her eyes and went all out in her Ren, showing her resolve. Her fists and wrists turned black as they seemed to reject the light around them. None of the Merchants or CP8 Operatives had Observation Haki, so none of them saw the aura or blackening of Wonder Woman's skin. When Armament Haki was applied to the degree that it became visual, it was only visible to those with a broader perspective on reality, so a picture taken of her would not show black fists.
Rayleigh vanished and reappeared with his sword being blocked by Wonder Woman's wrists. Sparks flew off as if Wonder Woman really did have indestructible bracelets on her wrists, something Rayleigh suspected to be a defense Hatsu.
After blocking his first strike, Wonder Woman punched out. This punch shattered the air, the wood beneath them, and Rayleigh's understanding of Wonder Woman's character. She had no skill at all.
A half step and a usage of Ren dodged the strike and blocked the vibrations in the air from causing any damage. Her punch had more destructive force than the cannon of a modern tank, but she didn't have any form, relying on pure strength.
Still, he had an audience to please. Rayleigh moved to strike again and increased his speed a tiny bit. His sword only had a dozen lines of Sword Aura circulating around since he was just testing the waters and didn't want to actually chop her arms off.
He circled her repeatedly, vanishing and reappearing from view while attacking her from different angles that she blocked with her Haki and Nen-infused wrists. She wasn't anywhere near fast enough to counter attack leaving her unable to do anything but defend herself.
Wonder Woman tried various vibration powered area of effect shockwave attacks but Rayleigh's own aura sufficiently protected him from the vibrating air. He would definitely feel it if she landed a single blow, but she couldn't even touch him. Her only other skill was Conqueror's Haki, but Wild King said that Rayleigh wasn't affected by it and even if he was, Wonder Woman knew better than to reveal her possession of this skill to non-Players. Dragon Chef learned the hard way that showing off some skills leads to getting chased by an Admiral, something she wasn't ready for yet.
From the deck, she shouted, "Glitter! Sink the other ships!"
Glitter returned to her human form for a moment before changing her stance and crystallizing back into a human diamond. This time though, she had an outstretched hand pointing at one of the Marine vessels.
Wonder Woman called out to Rayleigh, "Since you did the Water Divination Test for everyone, you should remember everyone's aura type. Do you remember what Glitter's was?"
Rayleigh did in fact recall. Glitter was an Emitter. Was she about to fire an aura blast out of her hands?
Wonder Woman said, "The longer Glitter holds that pose, the more aura she can fire. In her diamond form, no one can force her to change her pose, and she doesn't have to change back to fire. In a minute, she will have enough aura to sink that ship. You have until then to get out of my way."
Wonder Woman wasn't bluffing. If Rayleigh didn't stop, Glitter would sink the first ship and then the second. If Rayleigh wanted to play hero, he could rescue the passengers and take them to this ship while Glitter blasted open the cargo hold and Wonder Woman lifted the Poneglyph from this ship to her yacht. Worst case scenario was that she could not steal it and just touch it to get the map and then leave. Once she had the Map, All Seeing Prophet could use her Glare Glare Fruit's powers to find the island and best route to the treasure and her high speed yacht would take her there in style.
Rayleigh kept fighting Wonder Woman in a flashy way as Glitter gathered more and more aura into her palm. The light shined through her diamond body and made her sparkle brightly, giving a new definition to the term, Glass Cannon. Wonder Woman shouted, "She's really gonna do it if you don't get out of my way!"
Rayleigh said, "You should pay more attention to our fight, and less attention to things that don't matter." At that moment he sped up even faster, forcing Wonder Woman to dodge and block using her Observation Haki, something that could not completely catch up with Rayleigh's speed. Even if she could see a quarter second into the future with it, her reactions were slower than Rayleigh's attacks, her act of adjusting herself to the future was slower than Rayleigh readjusting his attack to account for her predictions.
Right before Rayleigh sensed that Glitter was about to fire, he threw something at the diamond woman from across the ship. Thanks to a clever use of telekinesis, it looked like the moment the object struck the glittering girl, the diamond statue actually tipped over and her palm faced the open sea. With her aim altered from being tipped over by Rayleigh's telekinesis, a massive glowing shot of aura fired into the open air, missing the Marine Ship completely, right before she fell onto the yacht's deck.
All Seeing Prophet shouted, "It's over! Let's go! Now!"
Wonder Woman was a lot more prudent than she led others to believe, so she heeded the advice of the woman she knew could peep into the future and jumped back to her yacht before ordering her helmswoman to sail away.
Glitter turned back to normal, got up from the floor, and shouted, "I can't believe that guy! I'm gonna get back at him one day."
All Seeing Prophet rolled her eyes and picked up the object that Rayleigh had thrown at Glitter. It was a familiar looking roll of paper. Wonder Woman recognized it immediately and said, "He gave us the Map?!"
All Seeing Prophet answered, "I tried to read his mind using my Devil Fruit but I got blocked. His Force Mastery is at the Jedi Master level. Inside his head, he told me that he had not looked at the map, that he had no interest in it, and that he would give it to us if I agreed to convince you to leave. You can't lie while inside your own head, so I knew he was telling the truth. He really didn't want the treasure and as long as we don't say anything, he won't either."
Wonder Woman looked perplexed and asked, "Then why didn't he just give us the map at the start?"
All Seeing Prophet turned her head away and said, "He wanted some good pictures."
"Pictures?"
It was at that moment that Glitter, who had gone inside, came back out with a change of clothes and handed them to Wonder Woman. Seeing these, Wonder Woman looked down and realized that her clothes had become a completely tattered mess, barely covering anything.
Once the realization hit her she shouted again, "PICTURES?!"
She asked herself how she hadn't noticed her state. Then she remembered what Rayleigh had said to her, 'You should pay more attention to our fight, and less attention to things that don't matter.'
After being told something that, at the time sounded like very good advice, she did stop thinking about anything but the fight, not noticing the state her clothes had been cut into afterwards. In hindsight, it had obviously been a Jedi Mind Trick. Swordsman actually used a Jedi Mind Trick on her. Before that point, he had not targeted her clothes so she had no reason to think that he would have stooped so low.
Glitter, trying to stay positive, said, "At least we don't owe him a favor anymore." She was upset at the fact that Rayleigh had moved her while she was in the form of a diamond. It didn't take a genius to realize that she could have been tossed overboard just as easily as being tilted over, and she could only grumble at the fact that she forgot that Swordsman could do that.
All Seeing Prophet, someone who could See what a debt to Swordsman really meant, shook her head. "No. It would have been one thing if we really did leave when he asked, but we did not and only left after he got his pictures and gave us the Map in exchange. The debt remains."
Wonder Woman turned to All Seeing Prophet and asked, "How bad is it?"
All Seeing Prophet awkwardly shrugged and said, "Glass Half-full, at least you'll make the front page of tomorrow's newspaper."
Wonder Woman's scream of frustration echoed to the sky.
Rayleigh, back on the Cargo ship, received glowing commendations from the Merchants and Cipher Pol Operatives. Rayleigh was surprised that the latter did not ask him to join them since he figured they would want to recruit him after the Marines failed to do so, but he didn't know that Cipher Pol only recruited children and orphans so they could be brainwashed from a young age.
Although he had an empty feeling from the quality of the fight, at least he confirmed that his mental defenses against mind readers worked just fine. After that incident with the Phantom Troupe, he'd never been able to test if the defensive measures he put into place had any effect. The result was that the Peeper wasn't able to see his thoughts, memories, or multiple instances of Wills which let him keep that a secret.
Even if the fight was lacking compared to his expectations, Rayleigh was at least satisfied that the cameraman confirmed that he got a few golden shots. His eyes were shining brightly as this was the first time Wonder Woman had been defeated and driven back by someone who wasn't a Vice Admiral. It was also the first time someone had harmed her clothes since her Ren usually deflected attacks and kept her clothes safe. From the perspective of the witnesses, it seemed that Rayleigh was unable to injure her at first, then got stronger and was able to cut her clothes. If he got even stronger, perhaps he could have cut her down, so it made sense that she ran away at the time.
No one thought that she had run because of the state of her clothes since it looked like she hadn't cared about them during the fight. As long as the story kept this in mind, it would not make Rayleigh look like a complete scoundrel who tears off the clothes of every pirate he meets.
Rayleigh's next task was to find Mihawk. This was the main reason he gave up the treasure map. He didn't have time to look for treasure and had much better things to do, like learn Haki from this world's number one swordsman.
There was the slight issue that Rayleigh had no idea where Mihawk lived and the fact that he often traveled randomly didn't help matters. For anyone else, this task would be a thousand times harder than entering the Grand Line. For Rayleigh, he just had to rely on the almighty power that was his Force GPS.
After receiving the thanks of the various parties and confirming in the Pirate Chat Room that Wonder Woman hadn't said anything, Rayleigh started meditating on the path that would lead him to Mihawk.
The next day, as predicted, Rayleigh and his long sword appeared on the front page of the Grand Line News along side the determined looking Wonder Woman. Rayleigh did not cut anything important and the picture was at best PG-13, but the partially revealed skin left a lot to the imagination and Wonder Woman's notoriety did the rest.
With that paper in hand, Rayleigh picked another merchant ship to guard during the voyage and headed off once more. Three days into the journey, Rayleigh jumped off the ship and started sprinting along the water in a certain direction, much to the crew's confusion.
A half hour of running later, Rayleigh encountered a misty, muddy, muggy island that looked right out of the set of a Tim Burton movie. Somewhat close to the shore was a massive castle. Since the Force had led him to this island, Rayleigh wondered if the occupant knew where Mihawk was.