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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #124
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 08:15:38 +0000 UTCThe fire crackled weakly in front of him, its little orange tongues licking at the damp driftwood like they were embarrassed to even be here. Gale sat at the cave’s mouth, palms open to the warmth, his coat draped over his shoulders.
A groan echoed from behind him.
He glanced back at the pile of pirates stacked as neatly as firewood—twelve in total, all fresh out of Fishman Island, now fresh out of consciousness.
Their limbs stuck out in weird angles, one guy’s leg twitching like he was trying to kick himself awake. Gale tilted his head, then looked forward again at the real spectacle: the mouth of the cave opening onto Raijin Island’s endless storm.
Purple lightning hammered the ground in rapid, merciless strikes, each one so close he could smell the ozone. It didn’t even wait a polite three seconds between flashes and thunderclaps—it just kept going like the sky was on a caffeine bender.
Gale sighed through his nose. “Of course. First week in G-5 and Vergo’s already got me deployed.”
The “deployment” hadn’t even come with a formal meeting. No handshake, no sit-down, no “welcome to the team.” Just some random corporal jogging up to Gale in the hallway like, ‘Hey, the Vice Admiral says go risk your life on Lightning Island, kthxbye.’
“Classy,” Gale muttered, flicking a pebble into the fire.
Still, Raijin Island wasn’t the worst place he’d ever been. Once you ignored the fact that God had apparently decided to target practice here for eternity, it was… weirdly scenic.
The locals even managed to adapt with umbrellas—not water umbrellas, mind you, but actual lightning-proof umbrellas.
Gale hadn’t decided if that made them geniuses or just stubborn lunatics.
And then there were the people themselves. Hooded, silent, torches in hand, always moving like shadows across the stormlit ground.
With the island bathed in perpetual darkness and flashes of purple splitting the sky, they looked less like islanders and more like a doomsday cult who’d just voted unanimously to sacrifice the outsider.
Which, given the way they stared at him when he first walked through town, wasn’t out of the question.
Great, Gale thought bitterly, hugging his knees closer to the fire. 'A thousand ways to die here: lightning strikes, pirate raids, or a bunch of hooded villagers deciding I look tastier than whatever’s on their menu tonight.'
And to make things worse, Gale still hadn’t decided what he wanted to do about Vergo.
Run? Fight? Pretend he’d tripped and fallen off a cliff on accident, thereby removing the whole decision-making process entirely?
All options were equally exhausting.
He poked at the fire with a stick, watching sparks hiss up and vanish against the cave ceiling. His mind kept circling back to the same two paths: fight or flight.
Fighting Vergo… yeah, no. As things stood, that was suicide with extra steps. Vergo was raw, brute force wrapped in a Marine coat, topped off with enough Armament Haki to make a blacksmith jealous.
And Gale? His observation was decent, but his armament was nonexistent. Put simply, he’d get folded like laundry.
So, what was left? The sneaky route. Borrow a knife, stay in the shadows, and wait for Vergo to slip up. Get undeniable proof that “Mr. Model Marine” was actually Joker’s man.
Trouble was… Gale already knew that from the anime. Not that it mattered—try telling that to a bunch of high-ranking Marines and see how far “trust me, bro” gets you. Vergo’s reputation was golden polish on rotten wood.
The guy was hailed as a paragon of leadership, a role model, a reliable vice admiral. Never mind the fact he enjoyed beating people half to death with a bamboo stick like it was an Olympic sport.
No, if Gale wanted to expose him, he’d need incriminating proof. Solid, irrefutable, career-ending evidence. Something you could drop on Sengoku’s desk that would make even that old goat rub his temples and say, ‘Well, shit.’
And finding that? With Vergo? The bastard was meticulous. Thorough. He probably had contingency plans for his contingency plans.
That left the other option: running. Desert the Marines. Disappear into the chaos of the New World.
Which… was just as suicidal, honestly. Because right now, his uniform was the only shield keeping him safe. Without the Marine coat, Doflamingo wouldn’t hesitate to send half his family after him, worse yet, he might decide to personally hunt down Gale...
And yet, there was another reason running wasn’t an option to be taken lightly. A heavier one.
Florencio’s business wasn’t finished. Shepherd was dead, sure, but Akainu? Akainu was still walking free, smug as ever.
Gale’s grand scheme—if it could even be dignified with that label—was painfully simple.
Step one: join the Marines.
Step two: get stronger.
Step three: wait for the perfect chance to strike.
And what was that chance? Oh, nothing big—just casually slipping in while Whitebeard was pounding Akainu into the earth like a tent peg.
The plan had its appeal.
Timing was everything, after all.
If the world’s strongest man was busy tenderizing Sakazuki like a cheap cut of beef, then maybe—maybe—Gale could swoop in, take a swing, and not immediately end up as a pile of ash.
“Opportunity makes the man,” Gale muttered to himself, then frowned. “Or the corpse. Usually the corpse.”
Still, it bought him time. Time to get strong enough to actually hurt Akainu instead of just annoying him into using Gale as target practice. And if Whitebeard really was holding the guy down for him… well, that was the closest thing Gale would ever get to divine intervention.
But… it wasn’t his only option.
Plan A: Desert the Marines and somehow, somehow land himself a warlord position. That would earn him a first-row ticket to Akainu’s eventual beatdown, no questions asked.
Except, you know, questions would be asked. Like, “Why the hell should we give you a cushy warlord seat after you skipped out on the Marines?” or “How did you piss off Sengoku so badly that he looks like he’s aged ten years overnight?”
The thought alone made Gale wince. He could already imagine the look Sengoku would give him during every single warlord meeting—like a disappointed father, except angrier and significantly shinier.
And Garp? Garp would probably beat the crap out of him just because he could. No “lesson,” no “training,” just a casual “fist to the face because I felt like it” kind of deal.
Then there was Plan B: joining Whitebeard’s crew.
On paper, it sounded easier. Walk up, say, “Hey, mind if I tag along until I stab Akainu in the throat?”
Boom. Done.
Except… yeah, no.
They’d take one look at him and go, ‘Marine? Definitely a spy. Kill him before he sneezes.’
Which was fair, really. Even Gale wasn’t sure he’d trust himself in that situation. And Whitebeard’s crew wasn’t exactly the kind of family you just wandered into without proving your worth.
The only way they’d let him stick around would be if he could convince them he wasn’t a threat—which, given his face was probably already printed on a Marine recruitment poster somewhere, wasn’t likely.
Gale dragged a hand down his face.
“So my big brain options are: risk getting pummeled to death by Vergo, risk getting pummeled to death by Whitebeard’s sons, or risk getting pummeled to death by Akainu later.”
He groaned, leaning back against the cave wall. “Wonderful. Truly, a buffet of bad endings. I can’t even pick one without feeling like I’m signing up for extra misery.”
One of the pirates in the heap behind him snored loudly.
Gale glanced over his shoulder, muttered “lucky clueless bastard,” and tossed another pebble at the guy just on principle.
...
Three days later, Gale found himself exactly where he didn’t want to be: sitting in a shabby little office that looked like it had been decorated by someone who lost a fistfight with termites.
The desk creaked under the weight of his boots as he leaned back, flipping lazily through a file. His face said “bored stiff,” but his brain was working overtime.
He knew Doflamingo wasn’t dumb enough to send Vergo charging at him like some bamboo-swinging assassin in broad daylight—not while Gale was still wearing the Marine coat.
No, the warlord was petty, vindictive, and flamboyant as hell, but he wasn’t stupid.
And Vergo? Yeah, Vergo wasn’t going to move without being absolutely sure Gale was involved in Diamante’s public humiliation, and he wasn’t going to move without making it look clean either.
If he wanted Gale dead, he’d arrange for Gale’s ship to “accidentally” explode, or for Gale to “tragically” slip into a volcano.
Which meant Gale had something precious: time. Not much of it, but enough to poke around before Vergo’s patience—or his bamboo stick—snapped.
Problem was, poking around wasn’t exactly rewarding.
He flipped another page in the file and groaned. “Gang hideout, pirate crew, pirate crew, gang hideout… are these reports or a grocery list?”
Most of the recent G-5 operations were the same story on repeat: hunt down some small fry, torch their base, take a headcount of survivors. The only pattern Gale noticed was that nearly every crew they wiped out had one thing in common—either they were enemies of Doflamingo, or in a position to become enemies.
Normally, that would be enough to start building a case. But there was a snag: Vergo had also sent G-5 after Doflamingo’s own people. Some of Doffy’s smugglers, informants, and pirates had been cleaned out right alongside the others.
“Pruning liabilities, most likely,” Gale muttered, tapping the file with his finger. “That flamingo bastard’s in hot water after Sabaody. Can’t have leaky pipes when the house is on fire…”
It gave Vergo deniability. If anyone came snooping, he could point at the files and say, ‘Look, I even took out Joker’s guys. How could I be in his pocket?’
Gale rubbed the bridge of his nose. This wasn’t a puzzle he could solve just sitting here. To prove Vergo was a mole, he’d have to visit the raid sites, ask questions, get testimonies—dig until something cracked.
That meant commitment. And commitment, in this case, meant signing up for the “How To Get Murdered By Demon Bamboo 101” crash course.
...
Gale sighed and tossed the last file onto his desk with the enthusiasm of a man throwing garbage into the wind. He pulled another one from the stack. Boring. Tossed it. Another. Same story. Tossed it. Yet another—he was starting to feel like a professional paperweight mover.
But then his hand landed on something different. He blinked at the cover.
Human resource allocation.
Now that was new. Gale cracked it open, and his eyebrows shot up almost instantly.
The first thing he noticed: this base technically required two commodores to function. Gale had only seen one—and “seen” might be too generous a word. It was hard to “see” Commodore Yarisugi without also seeing his leotard, his tiny little officer’s cap, and his golden greaves blinding you at the same time.
But as for the second commodore?
Nothing.
No picture, no details. Just a single line that said the officer had been transferred here about a year ago—give or take two months.
Gale frowned. Give or take two months? What the hell kind of precision was that? This wasn’t a pirate’s tavern tab; this was supposed to be an official Marine document.
But then again, this was G-5. From what Gale had seen so far, sloppy paperwork probably ranked just below “casual murder” on the list of base traditions.
Still… this felt off. The more he stared at the blank page where there should have been a face or a name, the more his gut started whispering: something’s here.
He leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers against the file. “Well, that’s suspicious. Missing commodores, mysterious transfers, weirdly flexible timelines… yeah, this definitely screams ‘nothing to worry about at all.’”
The office creaked again, almost like it was laughing at him. Gale gave the ceiling a look. “You think this is funny? You’re probably infested with termites, don’t act smug.”
Closing the file with a decisive snap, Gale tucked it under his arm and stood up.
If there was one thing he’d learned, it was that nothing good ever came from missing names in official reports. And if there was one thing he hadn’t learned, it was how to leave suspicious crap alone.
Which meant it was time for him to do some digging.
“Yup,” he muttered, brushing dust off his coat. “Because that’s what this place needs. Me, sticking my nose into things until somebody breaks it.”
Still, his mouth twitched into a half-grin.
At least now he had something to chase other than his own tail.
And with that, Captain Harlow Gale left his shabby excuse of an office, file tucked under his arm, ready to make his life and someone else's infinitely more complicated.
