Calm Belt (traveling from east to west blue): The Garden of Eden

Derge didn't see what happened but he felt an impact. He grinned as his claws not only drove into but through the object he hit. That grin however, faded as he saw Pyro with a hole in his chest with his arm in it. He noticed from the corner of his eye the monster went flying into one of the nearby pools of water. Derge shakily pulled his arm out of Pyro's chest so it could heal with his phoenix fruit abilities.

The wound was surrounded by blue flame and closed quickly after. Derge just stood there and watched his fellow marine as he passed out causing him to revert to his human form. For a moment Derge thought he was dead. Pyro started moving again quickly after; relieving Derge of the guilt that was just about to explode within him.

Looking around, Derge began to calm down. He looked from pool to pool watching for the monster to reemerge and try to attack once again. Derge remained in his transformed state, standing in front of Pyro. He scanned the area as the Pyro attempted to stand back up and failed. This was seriously bad, with Pyro on deaths door it'd be hard for the two of them to move. What's worse, Derge wasn't sure that he'd get another chance to catch the monster off guard like that.

"I know that's got to hurt...I fucked up my arm doing it to you. But you have to get up so we can get moving." Derge said with a shaky voice.


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"Doing what?"

Pyro looked down to see a red mark on his chest, purple around the edges. Obviously his flames had a time fixing that one. He imagined how much Derge must be counting on him to get back up. But Pyro couldn't budge.

"I'm sorry, I'm too weak. I can't lift myself. I don't think it was you. I was feeling off before the battle. This just made it worse. I was barely able to keep my balance, and now I can't even stand. I feel pathetic."

Pyro slammed his right fist as hard as he could into the ground, causing pain in his chest and not even making a puff of dust. He definitely wasn't at full strength. He tried again to stand but this time as he rose on his legs he fell forward and fell face-first into the hole left by the monster. This wasn't good. He was able to stand in the hole with an arm leaning him on the wall, but he barely had the strength to lift his arms let alone climb out of the pit.

"Damn it, I can't do anything!"

Pyro yelled as loud as he could. He was so frustrated he could cry. He had never felt so helpless, or unsure. He slid against the wall and out his head between his legs. He held his healing flames to his wound. He felt much better feeling his wounds heal, but he was still weak. Too weak to do anything by himself.

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Derge watched Pyro flop around trying to get to his feet to try and stand.  Pyro's attempts to stand failed, ultimately causing him to topple over into the pit the monster had created.  Finally with the aid of the wall Pyro was able to make it to his feet but just barely.  The phoenix looked like he could fall over at any moment, little lone try and get out of the pit by himself. Derge sighed, even though he had been partially to blame for the mess, it annoyed him to be burdened down.

Looking around, Derge noticed four other marines had survived and a child too.  The child's family must have stopped the shrapnel from hitting him by using their bodies to shield him.  There was a lot of blood everywhere, all over the child.  The event must have been very traumatizing to him.  Derge turned towards the marines, gesturing for them to come over to him.  "Grab the kid." Derge said pulling Pyro from the pit.  Derge's skin would be hot; by simply touching him, Pyro may take a little damage.  "We need to move.  Figure out what to do next." Derge ordered as he took over.  

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Pyro was lifted out of the pit, still healing himself. He could barely stand without the wall to keep balance. He caught himself on derge and then slowly walked to the map of the caverns and tunnel networks. He looked at it for a moment and realized immediately he had no idea how to read a map like that one. But he did know it was important.

"Derge, come look at this map. It might help us find a secure location. One that can be defended more easily perhaps."

The tunnels interconnected all the towers and the cities to the sewage, mining, energy, and highway systems. The only places free from tunnel dangers were the shore, infested by silverfins and seakings, the capitol building, which was overrun with zombie soldiers, and a mansion built into an old hollow volcano towards the south end of the island. The rest of the places had tunnels connected to them. However, the towers only had one each and there were several other locations that the entrances could be easily protected.

Elsewhere, the monster was scouring the tunnel systems, searching for the lost scent of his prey, corpses of fish all in his wake.


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Derge walked over to the map, he could barely make anything out off of it. He wasn't really trained to read maps even if he was in the Marines. Derge was a medic and other things like map studies didn't particularly interest him, back when he was going through his training; Marine or Steel Village. It was the sole reason Derge didn't take a dingy out and sail to West Blue himself.

"I think there are a couple of places we could go. The other towers could potentially have more marines but I want to avoid anything connected to the tunnels. There are two buildings that stick out to me the building here in the center and this one on the edge of town by the volcano. Derge said looking over the map.

He stood in front of the map for a moment later, as he turned around a look of decisiveness spread across his face. "We're going to the mansion near the volcano." he ordered. Holding out his hand, blood appeared from nothing. Within a moment a large amount of blood was floating in front of Derge. The blood began to flow around his fellow marines and the child. Hardening the blood, Derge had the six people in his grasp. Floating up Derge could feel his body ache and he was certain that the others were in the same kind of pain. Grabbing a hold of the blood that held the others, Derge took off using his gear to clear a vast distance in a small amount of time.


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Inside the mansion’s hall very little was moving, an eerie silence in the dark building seemed almost fitting, peaceful even. This peaceful silence was broken immediately as Donovan slammed the doors open and walked into the room. The large man was almost seething as he recounted the numerous ways this place was trying to condemn him “Zombie, Monsters, Sea kings, Volcanoes... and that’s just where the lists start. To hell if this place thinks that it’s going to kill me today.” As he walked quickly through the halls, his trench coat floated lightly behind him. He was mostly unscathed, mostly. The right arm of his trench coat had been almost entirely ripped off during a previous struggle, his metal arm in plain sight. Opening up his pistol clip, he counted that he had wasted several rounds getting here, only 14 bullets left in his current clips. “Damn it all.” He grumbled as he fit the gun back together, however he was keeping it out of its holster just in case.

The mansion seemed larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, door after door, room after room, it seemed to endlessly spiral into a maze if one didn't pay attention. Donovan swore that the rooms looked too similar, that or the design was leading him in circles without his knowledge. Stopping by each door, he slowly checked each room he came across, glancing very quickly over the layout before moving on to the next. With some help, the many tables and drawers could be overturned to provide some shelter, but there was no sign of food within the whole building... and Donovan lacked the extra hands needed to turn this place into a fort.

The few marines that had been with him had been lost to the dangers outside, and Donovan recounted each face of each solider that he watched die. They were good men, who fell under his watch, as these thoughts ran circles through Donovan’s head he kicked down the next locked door in his way. As far as he could tell there were no other survivors in the nearby area, but for the mean time there were no other threats. Using this time he had been checking for any threats that might be hiding in the various rooms that the mansion housed, luckily the building was filled with more empty rooms then walking corpses. Making his way back to the main entrance, he decided to do something he had not done in a very long time; he sat down. Taking a seat on table to the side of the hallway, he kept his eyes on the main entrance while he thought about his next move. “It’s going to take a miracle to get out of this one.” He bluntly whispered to himself as he rested his head on his arm.

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The marine had just begun to speak when suddenly he was shot forward, giving him a sense of suffocation, and then a headache. The other marines with him shared this fault, while pyro was un-phased. Pyro was still healing himself, but he had recovered enough that he no longer had to use his hands as a catalyst. He looked around, seeing more crystal coral making the frame of the island. on the volcano, it appeared a maze of spikes surrounded them, jagged and razor sharp. but in the midst was a long, narrow, windy path and a masion they had just landed in front of. 4 stories and a basement, redwood from the south blue, coral shards and beams, steel bracings, and stylized with baroque sills, flowers, pillars, statues, and other luxuries. Given the attentiveness to the support, he assumed a marine or veteran lived there, or at least designed it. Pyro had only seen navy buildings built with a double structure like it was: ornate in appearance but effective underneath with great structure. He looked at the corals, checking for one of the many magnifying crystals across the island, only to find they were all blurred and showed movement. Then the marine yelled, running from a less narrow patch of coral "They're already here! We need to get inside now!". Pyro didn't hesitate to follow. He pushed open the gate, and after everyone had entered he chained it shut and activated it's security mechanism. Just like a navy gate, three layers of steel appeared on each side, and sealed themselves on the large kairoseki fence around it.

"I suppose we just have to make do here until we figure—"

Pyro clutched his heart, which suddenly flared with pain. He screamed loudly before losing conciousness, eyes still open, hands clutching his chest. Although no damage was done, and his flames were still healing the right side of his chest, it was obvious something was wrong.

Crystal Fever: Fever has spread into Pyro's heart. The heart cannot pump blood properly, and infection has dramatically accelerated. Severe exhaustion and infrequent heart attacks shall occur.

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Derge watched as marines activated the security procedures and quickly locked down the mansion to keep out the regular type monsters. The security may keep out the smaller type but if the one they called Jason were to show up, the security doors wouldn't been all that effective. The blast doors and seastone were designed to keep out and neutralize almost any human threat, devil fruit or not. However even with all of the security features they did little against a threat like the one at hand; it was simply was not designed to stop something like this. "Damn it." Derge said as he felt the symptoms attacking his body.

All of the sudden Pyro gripped his chest and screamed in agony before passing out. Derge had seen similar sights when people had heart attacks, the victims fall over and die before they could even close their eye. Rushing over to Pyro, Derge stuck his hand on Pyro's chest. There was a blockage in Pyro's heart, caused by a crystalline structure. It was similar to the crystals in the air, however it bonded to the host cells differently. Like Derge had thought, the crystals in the air and the crystals that were causing the illness were different. It didn't really help knowing the distinction at that time but could be of help later on when developing a cure. While Derge couldn't cure Pyro there was one thing he could do. Derge formed a blade and used it to cut open Pyro's chest. Placing his hand into Pyro's chest, Derge flooded Pyro blood stream drastically increasing the blood flow in an effort to break off some of the crystalline buildup in hopes of allowing Pyro's heart to start pumping blood regularly. The sudden increase in blood pressure would easily kill regular creatures. Derge was certain that even if he burst every blood vessel in Pyro's body, his regeneration would be able to heal it.

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Pyro was in pain, but he was calm. Not because he had a choice, but because he was unconcious, remembering the experience. Then suddenly he felt a stinging sensation, and then felt intense pain throughout his body. It felt like he was overflowing with both energy and death. Suddenly it hit its peak. No more pain it had stabilized. But then the burning started. And he felt like he was exploding from the inside. Consciousness return as he rose, flames erupting around him, blood flying out of his screaming mouth. Pyro collapsed onto his knees, and then he felt the blood. His chest was open. At the slightest thought, his phoenix fire started healing the curpt, coursing through his blood through his open heart, healing the depths of his body. Pyro looked around at the room he had just started a fire in; a tapestry had caught fire and was burning away, the mairnes ignoring it, focusing on the floor. Behind the tapestry, pyro noticed a door. A typical marine storage door. Not quite as protective as a security door, but much easier to conceal and more efficient in general. Its lock mechanism was Grade B, identical to one his father had disassembled as a demonstration. He had shown pyro a flaw. Noticing someone had been speaking to him, but he had been too disoriented to tell up until that point.

"Hold up, shut up, give me a second."

Pyro stood, unsteadily, and stumbled over to the door almost at a normal walking pace. What was the flaw again? Pyro removed his cutless and cut the aluminum pole used to hold the tapestry. He cut it diagonally to the side as to give both halves an edge. He jammed the poles as deep as he could into the center of the double door, locked with its security code. He then moved each pole to the top and bottom of the small space. A loud click was heard. The first set of locks had been forced open. Without the code or the skeleton key he couldn't get past the second normally, but the door was weak at the hinges. He used his cutlass to strike the steel hinges. After striking each twice, both had broken as had his cutlass. The door goraned and shook, obviously trying to go into full lock down from the damage. Full lockdown had to first disable the secondary security system to activate the tertiary system, He took his broken cutlass and jammed it into the center of the door, snapping the lock that would have been used for the tertiary system and causing the doors to fall inward, away from pyro, into the room. Pyro ignored the gold, safes, and other treasures stored, even the illegal substances. He didn't even notice them. He was mesmerized by a beautiful rapier mounted in the center of the room. Pyro grabbed the hilt and drew the sword. It appeared ceremonial, but it was too sharp to be cermonial, and he noticed it was not black steel but kairoseki coated steel. Quite the unique weapon. Every marine is taught the differences between ceremonial rapiers and battle sabers, but somehow the smith had ignored the fundamental design flaws to make a one of a kind world-class sword. Pyro didn't think twice. He immediately replaced the cutlass's sheath on his belt with the sheathe of the new rapier.

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Derged sighed a little when Pyro got back onto his feet so flipping quickly after Derged had pretty much wrecked his entire circulatory system to try and get the crystal off of his heart. The medic wasn't sure that even Pryo would live through something that dangerous. Even if he did have the mystical phoenix fruit, Derge would have likely damaged at least a few of Pyro's major organs. However Pyro seemed to tank the emergency procedure like a champ, better so than even Derge had dared to hope.

The young marines watched curious as Pyro walked over to the hidden door. It was another room similar to the one that had been in the tower. Derge didn't think there any more marines in there, however there could have been weapon and other possible valuables. There could be something behind the door that could help them fend of the threat that awaited them outside. As Derge followed Pyro into the newly opened room he noticed there was a lot in the protected room. Treasure and ornate weapons beyond what even more high ranking marines could afford, not to mention illegal substances. Derge walked over to a barrel and noticed the contents was nothing other than dance powder. The stuff had been illegal for a very long time. He stepped over to another set of barrels and found it contained a crushed crystal like material. Forming blood over his hand, Derge placed his hand in the barrel. It was similar to the airborne crystal. There was something...different about it though.

"Hey come and look at this. I think its some version of the airborne crystal." Derge said to Pyro.

Pyro stumbled over to the barrel. He was starting to feel dizzy, and it was getting really difficult to breath. He realized using his life return by mistake saved his life. Rapidly burning calories would obviously increase his natural blood flow, which helped him to withstand the blow from his friend. However, it had taken a large toll. His organs were severely damaged, but healing. He lifted the crystals, and they stuck into his hand like shards of obsidian; they glistened in the light just like the corals themselves. This had to be the coral when broken apart. There was no other conclusion he could jump to. He only knew because he had been constantly using the corals to his advantage, the way they refracted light.

"These have to be coral shards. It couldn't be anything else."

His hand suddenly started to feel loose. Color seemed to be returning to his hand more than other parts of his body. He scraped off the corals, instantly sealing the non-damaging cuts without effort. But as soon as he had, the color faded from his hand again.

"Derge. You're a doctor, right? Do you think this could be something to help fight the... whatever it is?"

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Derge looked at the results the fine crystals had on Pyro, it seemed to slow or even reverse the effects of the second crystal type.  Even if the reversal was only momentary it still was extraordinarily effective.  Looking around the room Derge was looking at how many people were there.  There was more than enough of the crystal to treat everyone in the mansion.  Using his blood, Derged took a large quantity of the crystal and absorbed it with the blood back into his body.  One by one Derge took the blood and used it to inject the crystal into the blood streams of everyone in the immediate area.  Of course no one other than Derge could take nearly as much of it; as they couldn't take in as much extra blood as Derge.  

Sighing Derged walked out the room and used his blood to douse the fire before it could spread any further.  Such a small fire was nothing more than a simple matter for a liquid type logia like Derge.  Turning back toward Pyro, Derge reentered the large storeroom.  "This should sustain us for a while at least. It will probably prevent us from turning or decaying into crystal for a few days longer at least." he said trying to give a rough estimate.  Derge let blood flow over to the barrel and surround it before he hardened the blood into a platform.  Lifting the blood into the air, he used it as a sort of cart to carry the precious crystal cargo.  

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A loud wail shook the foundation of the mansion. Suddenly the squeals of all the zombies around Pyro and the marines filled the air, shaking even the earth beneath the foundation. Jason heard the squeals of his call, and ran full speed towards the sound of his bestial servants. Jason knew they had found his prey. Pyro heard the zombies scratching on the panels and plates from the security systems, trying to break through without any success. The screaming had been rather alarming however. He sheathed the freshly shined rapier he had been peering into. A beautiful sword indeed. Pyro peered in the looking glasses throughout the mansion walls. Upon the 6th one, he caught a glimpse of a zombie. He peered through and on the 11th one he found jason again, running towards the mansion. Pyro walked over to Derge, grabbed him by the shoulder and whispered in his ear.

"Jason is on his way. We have to escape through the catacombs. I doubt there is another way. And maybe the stench will throw off our scent."

Pyro had not found an entrance to the catacombs yet, but the mapped showed it was beneath the mansion. He had only one idea. A rumble ball. He ate the ball, and he felt new found pride in himself. New power only his majesty could possess. And then he felt his killer instinct sky rocket in force. Suddenly, he felt uncontrolably ravenous, as if he wasn't being chased by zombies, but instead he was the monster to slay the zombies out of self-preservation. He discovered his new form: beast form. He jumped to the ceiling. He drew his sword in the same instant. Then pushing off of the ceiling, he struck.

Flames of Saberfang

He felt his anger, his burning life force, and his shining courage all left him in that moment, taken form as flame on his sword. His first true sword attack. It felt natural and easy, with his instincts giving him more agility and skill. With his formidable 62.5% skill and his 47.5% agility combined into a powerful flaming blade, he created a sword strike with 110% power and a fiery bonus. The ground gave way beneath the strike of his sword, erupting and crumbling into a land slide. Luckily enough, it just so happened to open up the catacombs.

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Derge leaped into the catacombs behind Pyro, and stood there waiting for the other marines to come down behind him.  He grabbed the child from one of the other marines to lower the little boy down.  With the child in his arms Derge turned and started heading towards Pyro.  Derge could hear everything that was going on above them.  The roar of the fucking monster Jason that made him nearly kill Pyro.  There were the smaller beasts up there trying to scratch and claw their way through the safety doors.  The smaller zombies would never get through but with Jason it would only be a matter of time.  It was terrifying that the zombies seemed to reply to Jason.  If he could control the small ones, it could make their lives a whole lot shorter.  

"Come on we need to get out of here." Derge said to Pyro.  He paused to look back at the marines trying to climb down through the hole.  If it came down to it, Derge had no intention of giving his life for them.  "It'll be alright kid.  We'll manage to get away from these things somehow." Derge said trying not to remember.  He had already been forced to remember what happened at his village, he didn’t want to remember what happened to Izlend all over again.

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Donovan was surprised by how quickly the zombies made it into the mansion, he didn’t have enough time to barricade the building up. However, he heard more than zombies… possibly other survivors. Jumping to his feet, he stood to full height, and ran towards the stairs. Suddenly, a loud wail shook everything around him, followed by the insatiable earthshaking bellows of the horde approaching. “Damn it.” Catching his balance, he started rushing at full speed. He was on the top floor, so he had some time to run before reaching the main floor. However, as he approached the second level, things began to feel… hot. As he approached the stairs, he saw a few shambling corpses that managed to shamble their way up the stairs. These zombies seemed lower to the ground, and burnt for some reason. “What the hell is happening now?" While this could be something to his favor for once today, at the same time it could lead to more complications than he would desire.

Kicking the burnt cadavers to the side, he debated putting a bullet or two into them to make sure… but instead he was satisfied with using his boot to grind the burnt and a kick up of dust. The ground shaking and pouring down into what seemed like an underground crypt. Zombies seemed to have been blown away from all sides, jumping down to a stable section of the floor, he noticed a few survivors jumping down into the hole, he was about to shout to them, before the cries of the damned rose up around them again. Biting his tongue, he decided following them would be the better of his options, so he jumped down into hole with them. "HEY!" he yelled after them, attempting to run after them "I'm not dying today either!" They managed to keep a good distanced ahead of him, but as long as he stayed ahead of the horde behind him he would be alright.

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Pyro heard a large number of zombies come from above. They hadn't checked the higher floors, so it made sense some would be inside already. And there was a man running from them, as he turned to see the horde chasing. Pyro wasn't wbout to let them get him now. And the man was in the way.

"Duck or DIE!!!"

Flames of Saberfang

Letting his instincts take over, Pyro leaped forward and upwards and thrust his sword into the caving he created, causing the cave to rapidly collapse. He jumped off the rubble and rock chasing him to end up rolling down the cave at an accelerating velocity. He came to a clearing. Suddenly the cave bellowed and crashed, collapsing on itself behind them. But that's when he realized Derge, the man, and the bou weren't with him. Only the marines. They had seperated somehow. Pyro could only hope they were allive.

"Well, I for one am tired of not knowing where to go and how to get places. I'm going to memorize and map the catacombs my way."

He began to use the crystals to peer down passage ways. After examing the crystals in the clearing for almost an hour, he finally went down an opening, adjacent to the collapsed tunnel, heading underground. He observed the crystals as he walked, me,orozing the paths and how they interconnected, learning the passages as he watched.

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Derge acted on instinct as the final marine had come down the stairs with zombies behind him.  He turned and moved towards the cyborg.  It seemed that Pyro had the same idea and used his new sword to attack the oncoming foes, nearly avoiding the incoming marine.  The power of the attack caused the cave in to get worse, much worse.  Pyro and the marines were behind the area of collapse while Derge and Donovan were practically right in the middle of it.  As Derge got closer to the man in the middle of the falling debris he could hear the sound of something hitting metal.  Once he was close enough to reach the man, Derge realized that it was the man's arm.  It was made out of metal.  A look of surprise spread across Derge's face for a moment.  The look quickly vanished as soon as it had come; it was replaced with his usual calm demeanor.  Derge knew he had to act fast.    

"Come on we need to move!" Derge yelled to the marine.  Derge reached out to grab the man's arm to try and pull him out of the falling debris.  All the while the child was hanging on tightly to Derge's neck while he held the boy with his free arm.  Derge leaned his head over the boy, using his head to block any of the falling debris.  "SHIT!" he exclaimed. The path between Pyro with the marines and Derge with the boy and Donovan had been completely shut off. Derge was almost certain that the map shown the path that they were on was a dead end. The only natural exit was the one that had just caved it.

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“SON OF A, I SAID IM NOT DYING TODAY.” Donovan screamed with rage, he was ready to kill somebody, but there was no time for that now… settling for punching the debris blocking his path. “RHHHAAAAAAA” He screamed again, getting angrier with each passing second. His rage, his burning anger, it was almost blinding. However, looking around he saw that he was not trapped alone. Seeing there was another sane being gave him some reason to control himself. Coughing he looked the man over, he seemed familiar, but… he was holding… a child. Yet another life was in peril. Whoever that prick was who trapped them in here, he had some explaining to do. “Apologies… for the outburst.” Coughing, he tried to dust himself off.

Turning to the man who was trapped with him, Donovan remembered during the collapse the look of surprise this man had as when he saw the metal arm, it wasn’t new to him, and not many were very familiar with metal arms. Putting on his ‘polite face’, which was slightly less irritated than his normal face, he held out right arm “Donovan Lockwood.” He greeted. “I assume we're in the same boat? On the same team? So lets work together, shall we?" He wasn't much for friends, but in a situation like this it was better to make friends then enemies.

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The cave shuddered as Jason roared above Derge and Donovan. He could smell that the prey had been in the mansion, but they were no where near. Their scent was not near the catacombs entrance, and he was in no state if mind to deduce that they had escape through the floor. He smashed the floors and broke down a wall in his rage, having missed his prey, shaking apart the cracked rock deep below him. As he left the mansion to continue to search for prey in the catacombs, his jump caused the earth to shake one to many times. Abruptly and without warning, other than jason's sounds of course, the rocks shifted, one rock almost crushing to two of them, only being swayed the cave's small passageway, causing it to cave-in the wall directly right of Derge. Collapsing under the weight of the boulder, a path gave way into the crystal catacombs, butthese crystal were obviously from a different section. All the metallic silver crystals where deep emerald green in this underground. There were two paths, one left and one right. Both lead downward, but the left was long and straight. One curved right oath was shut from view after just a few meters. The caved groaned as the wieght of the rockslide began to oull rocks through the smashed wall towards the two unlucky delvers.


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Derge and Donovan had just made it out of the debris without taking any damage. The two could hear Jason above them, he was obviously angry that he had missed his prey. As Jason left the mansion, his tantrum caused another collapse which only just missed the three once again thanks to the shape of the passageway. The collapse also seemed to cause a wall to their right to crumble revealing pathways in the natural crystal of the island. "It looks like we have to go down, right or left?" Derge asked as the rubble behind them began to shift towards them.

"Sigh...Can't get a fucking break huh?" mumbled Derge turning towards the rubble.

Derge raised his right arm up and pointed his open palm, pointed at the path just in front of his. "Dome” Blood shot out from the pores in his and built a wall between Derge's group and the incoming rubble. He hardened the blood to something between the strength of stone and that of iron. Derge hoped that the wall would hold long enough for them to choose and get down a pathway. "We're going left. I've had enough fucking surprises for one day. I have no desire to allow something to jump out at me." Derge said lifting up and levitating down the long left path.


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Pyro had made a lot of progress in the two hours that passed. He had memorized the crystalizes passages of more than half the island by tracing the images he saw in the crystals. He even figured out how to control the angle of the crystals for searching via trial and error. He continued to walkthrough the catacombs, knowing that he couldn't memorize any more of them yet. He could only see the entrances to the other parts, with red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple and black crystals; the metallic and translucent white crystals where the only ones on the surface or on the main part ofthe island. The others all appeared to lead into the lower levels, beneath the island structure going towards the volcanoes. Based on his observations, Derge was in one of the catacombs. Judging by the area where they seperated, Pyro surmised only the green or orange passages could have opened for Derge, depending on whether he went right or down.

Pyro exited the catacombs. He had appeared near shore. He knew another entrance to the orange passage was near and it would allow him to check the orange catacombs and eventually enter the green ones if he couldn't find Derge in them. But by then Derge could have found his way out or deeper. He had no idea. For all he knew Derge was dead.

Meanwhile, as Derge levitated down his path, a clearing appeared. A large, sandy, wet, and cold clearing with hundreds of wrecked ships and loot. Any pirate would be happy to find all the near billion beli fortune in front of him. But marines turn in treasure to the office of commerce, who then lock it up in the treasury for revenue purposes. But anyone who knows anything about how the government operates knows that the treasury is unnecessary and it is simply appeasement for the celestial dragons.

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After what seemed like hours of walking; or in Derge's case flying, the two finally made some headway.  The two marines walked into what seemed like a clearing or a shore of some kind.  There were shipwrecks and tons of treasure lying all around the place.  If Derge didn't have the sneaking suspicion the island was a marine base before the outbreak, he'd have assumed this was nothing more than a hidden pirate treasure.  Derge was somewhat offended at the site of it all.  If this kind of thing was sitting on an island controlled by the marines that meant someone had been stealing from the marines for decades.  It was most likely a higher up, possibly even the same person that owned the mansion with all of the illegal goods in the storage area.  This was all going into Derge's report.  If it means hell or high water, Derge was adamant that this ordeal would come under investigation; an internal review.  In Derge's version of the ideal government, this kind of corruption would not stand.  The fact that a situation like this could affect politics that would slow or stop him from forming his version of justice infuriated the young marine.  Gritting his teeth he kept his calm, narrowly avoiding a scenario where he swept the entire area out to see with his fruit powers.   Derge realize something, there was one thing he hated more than pirates and that was corrupt marines.  

"If there is one thing I hate more than a pirate, it's a fucking corrupt marine." Derge said giving the only indication of his boiling rage.

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The ground suddenly shook all over the island, making a loud bellowing sound that sounded like a monster wailing in agony, thousands of years ago at its death echoing through the ages from a distant land. The crystals in the earth were resonating, causing the ground to match vibrations with the crystals. But why? As the echoing roar dispelled, the sound of rushing water flooded the catacombs. Pyro realized it had grown late. The high tide was rolling in, flooding the exposed areas. Pyro lifted himself off the ground and continued mapping out the orange catacombs. He had almost finished, and he was close to the entrance to the blue catacombs.

Meanwhile, the clearing had been clearly upset by the tide. Previously unnoticeable orifices surfaced above the clearing, hundreds feet above from the cavetop. A large deep ring was around the clearing, which was in fact a plataue connected to the cape. The water would raise over the next few minutes up to Derge's knees. But before he could experience this sensation, he would notice the foul stench and the sounds of agony as hundreds of rotting ectoplasmic-zombies pulled themselves out of the ground, iridescent, translucent, and jade in hue. The sounds of groans, roars, wails, and the cracking of bone in the rock beneath the water reverberated inside the giant echo chamber that was the cape, making an awful sound like a banshee, and could be felt even if one's soul also in likeness with a banshee's screech. Derge might hear the low bass feedback from the island as it distorted the loud wave.

Ghastly Zombies:

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Derge looked at the hoard of zombies coming at him in utter disbelief.  They had obviously been pirates, and a large crew at that probably entry level new world or paradise veterans.  There were so many of them; by Derge's estimates there had to be anywhere from 250 to less than 300 of them.  All of them were coming at the three standing just outside the entrance of the cavern.  Derge didn't understand how pirates got so far into the Calm Belt.  The seakings should have taken them out long before they reached too far in.  Derge could see that the pirates had started to ration off their supplies by the way they carried their loot and what's more by the shear amount of supplies they had, the crew was probably fairly successful.  

With an elongated sigh Derge wrapped a couple of tentacles around Donovan, lifting him up.  "Nope...Fuck this shit, fuck this island, and fuck these goddamned zombies.  I don't have time for this bullshit...fuck this." mumbled Derge racing off with Donovan and the child into the skies above as fast as his devil fruit could take them.

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Pyro emerged from the catacombs. After tracing all the paths, he realized Derge had escaped them. As he rose, he saw derge flying from shore. Pyro fired a healing fire ball at him as a signal. Pyro determined there was nothing that could be done. The best course of action would be to take a navy ship and go. Being a navigator, he could at least guide them to the next island. But with any luck the captain and his protégées would be waiting somewhere ready to leave. But he had no clue what to do. Pyro shouted as Derge came close.

"We should get out of here as fast we can. I've found the fastest way to the docks. It's oretty much a straight shot with no obstacles."

If they could escape they could always return later. But as of that specific time period, the present, they couldn't do anything. Then he saw the green glow behind Derge.

"What the fuck did you get yourself into!?" Derge. Jumped immediately into the catacombs to indicate to derge where to go.

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