Progress, New World and Invitations

_________ POV Narration _________

Despite Hina's wish to visit Enel, she only managed to get slumped with work endlessly.

A month passed by, and nothing had changed. But the Marines had built a rather large base on their island, extending from the caves and even shaping rocks to make proper stone buildings.

But they mostly lived in wooden buildings, as they had wood in excess thanks to Shiki's deforestation efforts.

In that month, Enel's progress became quite pronounced. Slowly but surely, he was getting to the point where he could punch off good chunks out of the mountain.

The fact that he was getting used to the seastone certainly helped. At first, he wasn't even half as strong as usual, but now he was even stronger than before, while still being weakened by Seastone.

Maybe it was a bit sadistic and mind-numbing. But Garp's training was truly results-oriented.

In the process, he had started training all of the 6 powers all over again, striving to gain true mastery over them before finishing his training.

His day was going as usual.

Garp had already visited him and given him his food for the day.

The meal was as large as always, with lots of meat and protein. A hefty meal was always condensed in the shortest amount of time, as to avoid taking too long a break.

One thing had changed recently though... Oven and Robin both joined in on that training.

Garp wasn't always enthusiastic about training pirates. But he made an exception for the two of them since they were both friends of Enel.

The fact that Robin was in his grandson's crew certainly helped too...

Regardless, Garp was fully against human interaction during that training, as he believed it would hamper their progress.

So the three of them were split up into different parts of the mountain range. All were properly collared and left to train in a different zone.

Only Enel and Oven had any real hope of reaching the point of actually taking down the mountain in a day. The two of them were at about the same point when it came to physical strength.

But that would still take quite a lot of progress, a year at the very least. So there was no reason to worry about their training zones overlapping for now.

Robin was left rather disappointed though. As she had only agreed to go and start that training in order to spend more time with Enel.

It was unfortunate that she didn't get to have her way in the end. But it was already too late to back out. Instead, she decided to take the training as a good opportunity to grow stronger.

Meanwhile, Larthy was left to tend to other matters... She wasn't really all that interested in joining the torture session that Garp had devised for her friends.

But she was left without anyone to train with... So she decided to just re-read a few of the Poneglyphs. There were always possibilities that they had missed a few things.

After all, plenty of words could be interpreted differently depending on context. So she felt the need to triple-check everything once more.

Her team was obviously going to continue assisting her throughout the matter. They hadn't lost anything at Baltigo, so they were able to just continue where they had left off.

Her research was bound to take a while longer though... Finding different interpretations of the same words was going to take just as long as deciphering everything all over again.

Well, at least now they had a benchmark for how the Ancient Script/Language actually worked.

But she wasn't the only one hard at work.

Sabo and the rest of the Revolutionary Army were doing their best to reach out to the Outside World, to find out more about the state of things.

They sent a few agents all across the world. Ivankov also went back to his kingdom to survey things there, and the other Army Commanders also spread out throughout the world.

Dragon, Sabo and Larthy were really the only leaders left at the base by that point.

Their information network was a lot vaster than before now. As they were now able to work hand in hand with a lot of the underworld, as well as the Warlord Buggy and his Bounty Hunting Crew.

Even so, actually establishing bases in the large cities was a struggle. As the protests had ravaged everything, and the severe lockdowns and measures made the situation much harder for the Revolutionaries.

Things were bound to settle at some point though. So all the revolutionaries had to do now was to wait.

They were still providing aid to the protesters as well, but it was mainly medical supplies, as they wished to minimize the carnage as much as possible.

They had their job cut out for them though, as Morgans did manage to stoke the fires quite a bit with his broadcasts.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Sky Island was mostly calm.

The Marines and Sky Guards weren't doing much besides training and building.

The Skypeans and the Shandian Tribe were already accustomed to their new neighbours.

But the fact that most people now realised that Enel was technically the one that ruled over the Sky Islands did stress them out.

Now, thanks to his efforts to appear harmless, that stress died out eventually. The fact that Gan Fall was still the one representing them certainly helped.

Technically, for them, nothing had changed. In fact, they now had a much stronger defence force in the form of the Sky Guards.

It no longer mattered that they were under Enel. At the very least they were safe, and there was no tyrant breathing on their necks watching them and listening into all of their conversations.

The Foosha Village was going strong. They had completely gotten used to their situation, many just continued their daily lives.

Woop Slap did so as well. He wanted to resign as the mayor initially.

The entire mess with the Celestial Dragon was something he had taken responsibility for. But no one actually blamed him for it.

A majority vote led to him continuing to be the Mayor. He was the respected elder in their community after all...

Dadan and her crew had also joined the Foosha Village officially. They were mountain bandits before, but they were always part of the Village Community anyway.

They had also partially raised Luffy, Ace and Sabo.

Now, Dadan did end up breaking into tears when seeing Sabo again. Their reunion was quite touching to everyone that saw it.

Dadan breaking her bat over his head did make the atmosphere a bit strange, but everyone understood at that point that she just expressed her emotions in that way.

She proceeded to admonish him for abandoning everyone and going off on his own.

But she didn't admonish him for long, the Mountain Bandits were far too happy to see him all grown up. So they decided to spend the rest of the day partying with him.

A party that only the people of Foosha village and the Mountain Bandits took part in.

Momonga and a few more marines were also invited, but they were rather busy with their training.

Francisco was still doing his best to train Wyper, Momonga and a few others.

Wyper decided not to learn swordsmanship at all, as it simply wasn't his style. But he did take a great liking to the spear he received.

He started training with it a lot more than with his Burn Bazooka.

His Conquror's Haki did stagnate, unfortunately. But it was an expected outcome.

He was just as talented as Francisco was at the end of the day. Both of them being at the top of the world in terms of talent.

But it had taken Francisco many decades and difficult fights to get to where he currently was. A bit of training wouldn't be able to bridge that gap between them.

That was also why Wyper decided to focus more on his spear and Armament Haki. The tribal warrior was shaping up to be among the stronger people on the Sky Islands already.

He still stood far behind the Admirals and the actual top figures, but he was making good progress in being able to fight them one day... Though winning was another thing entirely.

Although not as strong as the Emperors, the Admirals were still a significant power. Standing far above any other pirates besides the Emperors.

They each, individually, had the power to completely destroy an island. And Wyper was FAR from being able to match that.

Not much else had happened on the Sky Islands during that month... But things in the New World were going very differently...

There were numerous factions and powers in the New World. But few could count as being at the top nowadays.

The Emperors all still stood at the top, but the world was shifting heavily. And the existence of weapons capable of wiping Baltigo seemed to embolden quite a few pirates.

Many flocked to the New World trying to find any trace of that weapon and of the Revolutionary army, who was said to possess such a weapon.

But nothing would come out of it. Instead, they were all swallowed up by the powers in the New World...

The lines always became blurred when dealing with world-class powers. But people like Kaido stood a step above most people.

Although the Dragon Emperor had been somewhat humiliated in his last attempt to wage war on Sky Island, he still was one of the strongest beings alive.

And he used his strength and influence to subjugate a good part of the New World. He took over parts that had once been considered neutral territory by many.

There were no marines to contest his conquest either, so it was left for the other Emperors to try and Balance things.

Big Mom mobilised her crew as well, realising Kaido's game and deciding to swallow up as many pirates and territories as she could.

Whitebeard was wholly uninterested in the entire situation. He was too busy enjoying his time with his family.

He was still old, and quite sick, so he didn't feel like butting heads with any Emperors before he finally fizzled out.

Though he did feel like he still had a good few years left in him.

Even if his sickness was eating away at him, he was still going to power through it, and enjoy as much time with his family as possible.

Shanks's approach was somewhat different from Kaido's and Big Mom's as well. He decided to just sit back and observe things.

He already knew that Big Mom was on friendly terms with Enel, so he didn't see her expanding her influence as a bad thing.

Though he didn't know the full details of Enel's partnership with Big Mom. So things were still rather grey on that end.

Kaido's actions were concerning, but not that much when considering how much power there was on Enel's side.

So, all in all, Shanks was not all that worried.

At least not until he finally received Kaido's invitation.

Personally delivered by the Beast Pirate's Second in Command, King.

Communications were a bit more difficult after all, so King was the one to bring Shanks the 'invitation'.

Shanks couldn't help but scowl when reading it.

'To Red-Haired Shanks,

Although we have had our grievances, I believe it is time to put things behind us.

A war is brewing, and if we are to survive, then we need to cooperate.

Currently, everything is skewed against us. Sky King Enel has gathered forces far too great for any one of us to deal with.

But we, as the Emperors, must prove our supremacy once and for all when the day comes.

You can't be neutral in this conflict Shanks. You are either with us or against us.

If you wish to learn more, come to Wano. All other Emperors will be invited...

Signed, Kaido'

Although it was written as an invitation, it did also hold a rather large and unveiled threat.

'... Both I and Whitebeard are likely going to join Enel's side... Big Mom is the only question mark here... Is should at least take a look, visit Wano just to make sure.'

And so, the Red-Haired Pirates set off for Wano...

Whitebeard also received a similar letter. He did ponder on it for a while but ultimately decided to toss it in the sea.

Queen had to leave ashamed, but he didn't dare to act out in front of Whitebeard.

Whitebeard still scowled a bit as he drank his sake. He didn't quite like the prospect of an Emperor Alliance.

Newgate knew that he was no longer as strong as he used to be.

If the Emperors truly decided to band together, and he remained neutral, then they were likely going to try and kill him in Wano directly.

And he also couldn't go against Enel, nor would he want to. He owed the man his life.

So, to him, going to Wano was the same as killing himself. The fact that Kaido was far from his friend aided that decision.

His children were also against it, so no one was going to be there to represent him either.

Not that it mattered much to Whitebeard, he already made his decision. He decided to just go to his hometown and protect it.

Meanwhile, Big Mom also received an invitation...

And her reaction was different.

She knew her former crewmate very well. She had expected him to pull something like that after she saw his recent movements.

It was clear that attacking the Sky Islands had left a rather deep impression on him. His failure was now apparent.

Big Mom decided to go to Wano, at least planning to hear out her former crewmate.

Kaido did also owe Linlin, as she was the one to gift him his devil fruit a few days before the incident at God Valley...

'Let's see how things play out...' The Glutonnous Emperor only smiled as she embarked on her ship along with a few of her sons.

__________________________________________________________________

Hope you liked the chapter! Took me a bit to pt this out, wasn't able to find the motivation tbh, also had a bit of work, but that's beside the point. I hate burnout

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(Vegan Cult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)