Aboard the Polar Tang

The next day, in a part of the New World about halfway between Whole Cake Island and Wano, a submarine bearing the mark of the Heart Pirates rested on the surface of the sea.

The currents, winds, and the weather in general had been unusually calm in the past twenty four hours. Not Calm Belt calm, but enough so that they suspected there was an island nearby, but no island has shown itself thus far.

The crew took advantage of this lull in the chaos that was sailing the Grand Line regardless of the strange circumstances, though, taking turns soaking up some sun on the top deck.

"Oil? You run this submarine on oil?!" A shrill shout was heard below the deck.

"What else should it run on?!" The heart pirates' shipwright shot back.

"How about something that won't catch fire and kill everyone on board?! Like cola!" Franky argued.

"Cola?! There's no way you could run a sophisticated machine like our engine on a sugary fizzy drink! That's absurd!" The other shipwright was reasonably skeptical.

"Hmph! Works wonders in my Thousand Sunny," Franky huffed and opened up his chest cavity. "And in myself, I might add!"

The shipwright was struck dumb at the sight of cola bottles hooked up to what he vaguely recognized as an engine inside of Franky.

"What the fuck?" were the only words he could voice in response.

Nearby, the polar bear mink, Bepo, could be seen playing chess against Robin.

Bepo had his face scrunched up in deep concentration and only after a full minute of this did he finally light up and make a move.

Robin instantly made a move of her own. "Checkmate."

"Wha-? How-? When-?" Bepo glared at the board as Robin watched him go through the five stages of grief, before finally giving in and surrendering.

'So cute…' Robin thought as she gazed upon Bepo's devastated expression.

"Why do you keep playing against her, Bepo? You've played like a hundred times and haven't won even once," a man named penguin asked as he leaned in his chair, balancing on the back legs precariously.

"I was so close this time, though!" Bepo argued.

"That's just what she wants you to think, bro," Penguin said. "Nico Robin has spent her whole life fooling people when her own life was at stake. Chess is just a game to her."

Penguin nearly toppled over when Robin smiled 'sweetly' in his direction.

"But chess is a game?" Bepo didn't understand what he was trying to say.

"Tsk, this is why your bounty poster says your the crew's pet- ATATATATA?!?!?!" Penguin really did topple over this time as two hands grew from his shoulders, grabbed his ears, and gave them a good yank.

"Bepo-san is a valuable member of his crew and Law is lucky to have him," Robin stated simply. Bepo's bush shone through his furry cheeks.

Deeper inside the ship, Momonosuke was receiving lessons from Kin'emon and Kanjuro.

"When will math even be useful in the coming battle?" Momonosuke complained with a pout.

"I thought in much the same way when I was a lad, but when Oden-sama brought me on as one of his retainers, there were certain expectations of me. Having to learn basic arithmetic as a grown man was, quite frankly, mortifying. It will be even more so for someone of your high status, Momonosuke-sama!" Kin'emon tried to persuade him.

Momonosuke wasn't even sure they would all survive the coming battle, though. The impression that Kaido had left on him was too great, an impossibly tall mountain to scale; and instead of being taught climbing (fighting) techniques, he was being taught mathematics.

He could not voice those doubts, however. The last thing a lord should do is dishearten and demoralize his subordinate, so he kept his mouth firmly shut.

Up above, on the upper deck is where Zoro preferred to exercise and meditate (nap). Merry was curled up on his lap as he did the latter.

Usopp carefully tended to the pop green plants that he had brought with him. They weren't able to get as much sunlight as he preferred, since the submarine often submerged to avoid particularly bad surface weather.

Law was working on his tan in a foldable lounge chair as a few of his crew hung out in the fresh air.

"I don't like it," a large scary looking man grumbled.

"You've been saying you have a bad feeling since yesterday, Jean," another of Law's crewmen, Shachi, said.

"Well, I do. I got a bad feeling right before I got enslaved too, and I didn't listen to my gut then. Maybe if I had…" Jean said.

"Hey, captain? Shouldn't we be getting a news coo soon?" Ikkaku, the sole woman on Law's crew, asked.

There was a brief pause in silence before Law went from looking like a lazy cat to sitting upright and alert.

"We need to get out of here, and quickly," Law jumped to his feet.

"What do you mean captain?" Shachi asked, a bit caught off guard by how serious his captain was acting.

"News coos deliver on a weekly basis. They're also masters of avoiding dangerous weather, even the nigh unpredictable weather of the Grand Line. With the good weather we've been having, there's no reason we shouldn't have received the weekly copy of the World Economy Newspaper yet," Law explained as he swiftly put his pants and shirt on.

"We've been passed over before in the past, though?" Shachi still wasn't convinced.

"We haven't been passed over once since entering the New World, except due to nasty weather…" Jean's face darkened. "The World Economy Newspaper is based in the New World. Every news coo they have comes from this sea."

"Oi, long nose! Call your friend back down here! We're submerging!" Law all but commanded Usopp.

"Huh? What for?" Usopp hadn't been listening to them talk as he was distracted by a particularly prickly pruning procedure.

"Just do it, or we'll leave her behind!" Law stormed back below deck, his crewmates rushing to furl the sails and bring them inside.

Usopp could sense the urgency in the man, so he quickly climbed up the main mast and shouted up at Cabernet. "Cabernet! We need to go inside now!"

The winged woman swooped down, picked Usopp up, and brought him down to the deck (he only screamed a little bit). "What's up?"

"I don't know! We're submerging apparently," Usopp threw up his hands in an exaggerated shrug. "We'll have to ask Law about what's got him so flustered."

Cabernet nodded. She was used to other people knowing more about things than she did. Instead of getting worked up about it, she went over to Zoro and gave him a loud slap to the back of the head.

"W-what the hell?!" Zoro awoke with a start. "What'd you do that for?!"

"You're too hard to wake up, this way's easier," Cabernet explained simply, with an innocent look on her face that Zoro couldn't tell the authenticity of. "Law wants us back inside for some reason."

Merry hopped out of Zoro's lap and gave a big stretch with her little sheep legs, before seeming to shake the drowsiness off of herself.

"Hey, hurry your asses up!" Shachi rudely shouted towards them as his group finished rolling up the mainsail.

"We're going, we're going! Goodness, so bossy…" Usopp complained.

"Hey, could we go check out the shipwreck I saw before we go back under?" Cabernet asked Shachi.

Shachi looked at her. "Shipwreck?"