Chapter 26 - I am Spider Tobey

"...The Whitebeard pirates are a pack of cowards. But considering who your leader is, that's no surprise! Whitebeard is a loser from a bygone era!" Akainu mocked.

Ace, who was running to escape, stopped.

"A loser?" Ace said, and soon his fists and body ignited in flames.

He turned around and angrily said, "Take that back! Take back what you said!"

Everyone who saw Ace stop shouted for him to keep running.

But Akainu, seeing Ace's state, had other plans.

"Your real father, Gold Roger, stood in his way... Making him an eternal loser who could never become the king. That's who Whitebeard is. I'm only speaking the truth! You pirates call him Pops and love him... and put on this farce that you're one big happy family." Akainu instantly mocked everything Ace believed in.

But he didn’t stop there. He taunted Ace even more, saying that in the end, Whitebeard never accomplished anything and that the one responsible for his death was someone he called 'son.'

Then Akainu shouted, "Whitebeard will die a loser!! A fitting end for the leader of a band of human trash!!"

Throughout Akainu's speech, Ace yelled, contesting his words, but in the end, he snapped and shouted, "Whitebeard is the greatest pirate in the world!! He created this age!! The name of this era... is 'WHITEBEARD'!"

Then, despite the desperate cries of his crewmates begging him to keep running, he charged toward Akainu.

Ace became a vortex of fire and clashed against Akainu. But he couldn't even scratch him.

Akainu mocked him, saying his Devil Fruit was superior to Ace’s.

"Gold Roger, the Pirate King, and Dragon, the revolutionary! How surprising that their sons are brothers. You're both criminals by blood! You'll never be allowed to escape!! You brothers won’t get past me!! Just watch," Akainu said as he rushed toward Luffy, who was exhausted and had knelt down to pick up the vivre card Ace had given him.

Desperate, Ace screamed and ran toward Luffy. When he arrived, Akainu was about to kill Luffy, so he jumped in front of him to intercept Akainu’s fist.

DING ZWOO The sound of a blade rang out, and a sword was pressed directly against Ace’s back, stopping Akainu’s fist.

"Heh, you're brave, kid! Defending your father and everything you believe in. Unfortunately, you did that only after being the reason many of your crewmates died or are on their way to dying, including your father," said a female voice. It was the woman who had stopped Akainu’s fist with her blade.

When Akainu saw who had stopped him, his eyes widened.

"Pirate Empress Rogue of the Rogue Pirates!! Why are you interfering in Marine affairs?!" Akainu asked, both frustrated and angry.

"Shurarara, I'm a pirate. I go where I want! And right now, I want to be standing in front of your fist. If that bothers you, then leave! Of course, if you can, shurarara," Rogue, who dressed like a female version of Jack Sparrow, said with a laugh.

"Gurararara. Girl Emily, it looks like you've considered my offer to be your father, gurarara!" Whitebeard, who saw this from a distance, laughed heartily and shouted the statement to Emily.

"Who wants to be your daughter, old man?! I only came because I was bored, shurararara!" Rogue—now Emily—shouted back, laughing.

"Sigh Emily, why do you always use that laugh when we're in this world?" A silhouette appeared beside Emily and asked. It was Gwen, dressed like a generic pirate, but still looking stunning.

"Heh, it’s part of this world’s charm," Emily said cheerfully.

"She got you there, Gwen, fufufufu!" said a wild M.J., appearing out of nowhere.

"Gwen, why don’t you try it once? Maybe you'll like it, wiwiwiwi!" This time, it was the cute Ursula who spoke.

"Yes, Gwen, just let your heart come out through your laugh, shurararara!" This time, it was the handsome and gallant me who spoke.

I was wearing a white jacket draped over my shoulders without putting my arms through the sleeves, my bare torso exposed, and loose, long pants. This was my One Piece-style pirate look. I was also the one who dressed Emily as Jack Sparrow—since she was the one who chose this world, she would preside over the adventure, so she had to have the proper attire. And I have to say, she looked hot.

"Ok, ok, I’ll try just once... inhale exhale here goes... zehahahaha!" Gwen tried her laugh.

The girls and I fell silent, staring at Gwen’s villainous pirate laugh.

"Oh, it wasn’t so bad. Actually, I think I liked it, zehahahaha!" Gwen said, laughing sinisterly.

"""""Please don’t do that again!""""" The girls and I said in unison.

"Bah, now that I like it, no one can stop me, zehahaha!" Gwen declared triumphantly with her villainous laugh.

The girls and I exchanged looks and burst into laughter.

While we were talking, Akainu made a strategic retreat and ran to join the other Marines.

Meanwhile, Whitebeard couldn’t stay idle either, as Teach had come to challenge him.

"Please, Emily, save Pops! He’s not in the best condition—we have to help him!!" Ace pleaded.

"Sorry, kid. Your father is too injured. Even if I help him now... sorry." Emily, who was explaining, looked at Ace’s tearful, hopeless face and felt terrible.

She then looked at me, and I shook my head.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t save Whitebeard, but he was my creation, and he had his story—I didn’t want to break that. Besides, he wouldn’t truly die; I had created a paradise where the consciousness and souls of my robots would go after death. Yes, I had made discoveries about souls.

It all started when I created a paradise for their consciousness, but because I ended up overdoing the process, I began detecting something coming along with my robots’ consciousness. Then, after much study, I started touching upon what a soul truly is. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to delve deeper, I would need access to magic—and unfortunately, there is no magic in this universe. If there were, I’m 99% sure I would have already discovered it.

In fact, I’m sure of it because I actually did find magic in this world, but it wasn’t a tangible magic. It was just as the elder said—magic is the source code that shapes reality. So, magic is present in everything. She also said that to use magic, we need to collect energy from other dimensions in the multiverse.

In summary, everything has magic. It’s as if Wanda used chaos magic to create a stone, but she would have to constantly use primitive magic to keep that stone existing. Meanwhile, a normal stone was also created by magic, but it’s magic that has transformed into a stone—not magic that merely appears to be a stone.

Unfortunately, I need a more primitive energy to be used. I can’t simply rely on the already-shaped reality to extract magic.

Actually, I believe I can—but I need to study more. However, there is a shortcut: getting bitten by a spider and connecting to the Web of Life and Destiny.

By connecting to the Web, I would gain access to the primitive magic of other dimensions, allowing me to shape and use magic.

One way to exemplify it would be like this:

• We have clay.

• We can make a vase out of it.

• We can also break it apart and turn it into a cup.

• But once the clay dries, we can no longer change its shape.

So:

• Clay would be primitive magic.

• The person shaping the vase would be the mage.

• The vase itself would be the spell.

• And finally, a process that only a few mages can achieve—drying the vase—turning something immutable, which would mean transforming magic into something real, making it cease to be magic and become atoms, molecules, things.

Well, those are the conclusions I’ve reached about magic. It’s not concrete—I could be wrong—but it’s better to have something than nothing.

Now, back to talking about the world.

One Piece is one of the worlds where, to maintain the story, I had to create a dark side of the world—so I made the Celestial Dragons... but I admit I just can’t create slavers. But they had to exist, so I made fake slaves. No one in the world knew that the slaves were just robots without feelings, stories, or souls. I simply created simulations dictating how they should respond to certain things.

The world of One Piece was one of the worlds I created where they didn’t know of my existence. Of course, I could make them aware at any moment, and they would worship me.

Regardless, I also made angels protect the good people in this world I created, so the Celestial Dragons wouldn’t harm them. But to keep things realistic, I made emotionless, soulless, storyless robot families to simulate good people who suffered under the Celestial Dragons.

I also kept an eye on those robots—if, for any reason, they started showing signs of developing a soul, I would remove them from there.

And so, the world continued. I had only set the initial stage years ago, and it seems I made it so perfectly that the story naturally reached the same point as the Marineford War.

But this time, there was a newly risen Yonko—the Pirate Empress Rogue.

From time to time, we make time to explore worlds I created, but we’ve repeated our trips to One Piece many times, and Emily, as captain, ended up becoming a Pirate Empress. She used part of her hero name, Spider-Rogue, as her pirate title.

We had a lot of fun in this world—fighting against many people and becoming great friends with Shanks, Whitebeard, and their crews.

I thought that because we interfered, maybe the Marineford War wouldn’t even happen. But everything still unfolded as it should—except for one difference: Teach appeared earlier.

Oh, look at the time! sigh My big mouth... I think I’ve spoken too many words. If this were a chapter, I’d have to split it to continue.

Unfortunate.