Once we’d finished preparing for battle, we got back into the buggy, and Wolf drove us to his lab. Although I felt the weight of Pleasure Town facing such a deadly threat, I was also a little excited about the trip. It would be the first time I’d ever set foot in Wolf’s laboratory. I’d begged him to let me see it before, but he always steadfastly refused. The thought that I was finally going to see the thing that the old man held dearest—his work as an inventor—put a little spring in my step.
In less than ten minutes, he stopped the vehicle and told us we’d arrived. But when we stepped off the buggy, there were no buildings in sight, just a wide-open field. The old man trudged out into the middle of the empty space until he reached a metal hatch on the ground. He put a key in the lock and turned it. A latch clicked, and the hatch swung open.
“Wow! It’s like a secret base!” Bepo exclaimed.
“There’s power down there, so we’ll have light inside, but the steps to it are steep. Careful not to fall,” Wolf said, leading the way down the stairs.
So it really is a secret base. I don’t usually feel childish excitement, but I guess I can make an exception for this.
After a few turns around the spiral steps, we arrived at a much larger space. This room was full of inventions, and they were nothing like the odd trinkets that littered the floor of the house. There were several small airplanes and vehicles of a type I’d never seen before. Beyond that was a pool full of strange cultivating material. The old man even had a lab with flasks and beakers and graduated cylinders for chemical experiments, and an area for axes and guns and swords with strange markings on their surfaces.
This is the laboratory of Wolf the inventor, I thought, marveling at the sight before us. If not for the situation at hand, I would’ve grilled him about what each item was and what their capabilities were.
“You really are an inventor, old man,” said Shachi, unable to hide the wonder in his voice.
“Of course I am! What did you think I was?! Anyway, you haven’t seen the really surprising stuff yet. The real shocker is still to come. Bring that sword over, Law. We’re going to need it when we fight Bacca.” As he spoke, he pointed at a katana in a sheath. I drew the blade and saw that it was honed and sharp. There was also an odd switch on it that I wondered about briefly.
Wolf led us into another passageway. I wanted to stick around where we were and look at more stuff, but time was of the essence, so we hurried after our guide.
After another set of creaking stairs, we came to a dark room. I could smell something briny in the air. Were we close to the sea?
“I’m going to turn on the lights,” Wolf warned us before hitting the switch.
“Whoa… Are we in a cave?” Penguin wondered.
Unlike the invention labs we’d just seen, this was a natural cave with walls of rock and sand.
“This is a secret cave that even the townspeople don’t know about. And that’s what I wanted to show you!” Wolf said, pointing toward the other end. That’s when we saw it.
“It’s huge…” Shachi said, amazed. It was an enormous yellow ship—a metal ship, floating on the water.
Could this possibly be another one of Wolf’s inventions? This was no ordinary ship.
“Junker, is this…?” I started to ask.
“Hmph. It’s exactly what you think it is, I suspect. This is the greatest invention ever made by Wolf, the genius inventor—the Invincible Flower Stamp submarine!”
“Stupid name!” the rest of us said in perfect unison. But regardless of the name, the ship was incredible. The yellow metal hull was overwhelming in size and shape.
“We’re going inside.”
“Really?!” Penguin exclaimed.
“Of course. This is the secret weapon that we’ll use to stop Bacca, after all,” Wolf said, snorting proudly. We didn’t know what he meant by that, but we followed him into the submarine.
“Whoa!” we cried out together.
The ship was stunning, but it wasn’t just for show. There was a control deck and various pressure gauges and inner workings, just as any submarine would have. The other guys took turns sitting in the seats and looking out the portholes, chattering excitedly among themselves.
“How about that?” Wolf gloated. “Are you impressed at my greatness now?!”
“Yeah, whatever, but how is this amazing submarine going to help us fight Bacca? He’s on land, after all, hanging out in the middle of the town,” I pointed out.
Wolf cackled to himself. “Hmph! You don’t understand the kind of raw horsepower this thing has, Law. Just take a seat.” He sat down next to me at the control deck, checked on a few of the instruments, then started the engine.
“Opening main ballast to seawater… Screw propeller is functional!” Wolf called out as a horrible, ear-rending screech filled the cave. All three of the others cried out in dismay:
“Whoa!”
“What is that?!”
“My ears hurt!”
The sound was like glass scraping against glass. We all put our hands over our ears. But I recognized that sound. I’d heard it three years ago—it was the same sound I’d noticed when I was practicing with my sword in the yard. I gasped at the realization. The story of the swallow that flies through the sea.
“Junker! Is this bird-screeching sound the one that everyone thinks is—”
“Hmph!” Wolf interrupted me “You’ve probably heard the stories people make up in town about it, but this is the sound of the Invincible Flower Stamp’s propeller reverberating through the cave, and it becomes a great cacophony when it reaches the sea and the town! Yes, this is the swallow that flies through the sea!”
It all made sense now: Wolf would take the submarine for test dives now and then. If anyone saw the submarine’s shape beneath the water after the roar of the propeller, of course they would make up a story to explain it.
“All right! All systems green! We’re taking off!” Wolf warned us, and with a loud thump, the submarine began to sink.
“Whoa, we’re really moving!” Penguin marveled.
Swallow is a rare type of island where most of the area underground is connected to the ocean. The submarine could take us under the island right up to Pleasure Town.
When the ship was down deep, I peered through the porthole at the sea around us. Schools of fish went swimming by. I’d never seen this underwater world before. It was so beautiful, I very nearly said it out loud.
This was a world I would never have been able to see on my own, after I ate a Devil Fruit and lost my ability to swim. But thanks to the old man’s invention, here I was now, gazing at a colorful profusion of fish dancing through the water.
The submarine had initially dropped straight downward, but now we moved horizontally—at a phenomenal speed.
“Whoa! This is crazy!” Shachi cheered.
“This thing is super fast!” Bepo said as the scenery rushed past us.
It felt like my body was fused to the submarine, moving faster and faster. We were going to be in Pleasure Town before I knew it. But hadn’t we forgotten something?
“Hey, old man. What’s your plan?” I asked him.
Wolf didn’t answer. He just chuckled gleefully as he piloted the sub.
“Should be any minute now,” he muttered. “Good, no problems on the radar. Bacca and his gang are in the temple, directly above us.”
“My point is, old man,” I persisted, “why disembark at the surface if we’re just gonna have to fight with the people under his control in town?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk! What in the world are you talking about? We’re not disembarking at all. The Invincible Flower Stamp is made of one of the toughest metals in the world! It can smash through the hardest of rocks!”
“Wait, are you saying…” I finally got it.
“You boys better strap yourselves in,” Wolf advised. “We’re going straight up and through the earth.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“We’re breaking through the earth and going straight into the temple from the sea! Trust in me! Screw propeller, Tailspin Torpedo!”
“This can’t be happeniiiiing!” the others all screamed. I didn’t want to believe it was happening, either. There was no way the old man could have done the necessary performance tests with this thing. But at this point, the only way past our fears was through them.
The submarine ascended at a high speed, emitting a grinding whine even more intense than the earlier sound.
“Three, two, one… Here we goooo!” Wolf cried.
Without losing speed, and making a tremendous crash, we broke through the layer of rock above and burst into the interior of the temple.
“What’s going on?”
“Where’d they come from?!”
“Oh, crap! We gotta tell the captain!”
We could hear the pirates panicking outside the sub. I couldn’t blame them—if I were in their position, I’d probably be freaking out, too.
“Well, this is quite the entertaining scenario,” I announced. At some point, you just had to laugh at the absurdity of life.
“Don’t drag me down, boys!” Junker called out.
“You stole my line, Junker!” I retorted.
The five of us burst out of the sub. It was time for the festival to begin.