Rainbase is located in the heart of Alabasta's interior. This city is the second largest in Alabasta after the capital, Alubarna. The kingdom's largest casino, largest spice market, and most desert caravan transit point are all concentrated in this city.
The city, which was once even more prosperous than the capital, is now in ruins.
The rebels captured Rainbase in just three days. The defending forces on the outer perimeter of Rainbase collapsed completely in less than two days. By the evening of the third day, the rebels' flags had been hoisted over Rainbase's royal palace. It was called a royal palace, but it was actually the palace of the Nefertari Royal Family in Rainbase. It was a three-story sandstone building with reliefs of past kings carved on the outer walls. The rebels had chiseled off all the crowns on the reliefs.
The palace hall, which was originally covered with a deep red carpet imported from the West Blue, is now covered with mud marks from military boots and dried bloodstains.
The map of Alabasta hanging on the wall was torn in half, and the remaining half was covered with arrows and markings in charcoal.
Prince is standing in front of this map.
He was tall, with broad but not thick shoulders. His posture was not that of a soldier, but rather more like that of a speaker: his back was straight, his chin slightly tucked in, his hands behind his back, his fingers slowly clasping and then releasing.
He was wearing a dark brown desert robe, the hood of which hung down his back, revealing his entire face.
He has a youthful face, probably in his early twenties, with sharp lines below his cheekbones, high brow bones, deep-set eyes, and a straight nose that is a hallmark of the Nefertari Family.
There was a thin, old scar below his left eye. It wasn't long and was very light in color, so you wouldn't notice it unless you looked closely. His hair was dark brown, cut very short, with a neat hairline that exposed his entire forehead.
This face should have been in the audience chamber of the Alubarna Palace, standing beside the king, wearing the white robes of the Nefertari Royal Family, receiving cheers from the subjects.
Nefertari D. Prince, the eldest son of the Nefertari Royal Family, is the first in line to the throne of Alabasta.
Three years ago, the King issued a national notice announcing that Prince had passed away at the age of 22 after suffering from a serious illness and receiving ineffective treatment at the Alubarna Palace.
On the day the obituary was issued, the entire city of Alubarna its flags at half-mast, and the banks of the Sandora River were lined with subjects dressed in black, their cries echoing from the docks all the way to the main gate of the royal palace.
The "deceased" prince is now standing in front of a map of the Rainbase Palace, with three people sitting behind him.
The hall's furnishings had been transformed into a temporary command post by the rebels. In the center of the original palace's reception room stood a long table that had been moved from the Rainbase City Hall. On the tabletop was a map of Alabasta that had been torn in half, with four stones weighing down the four corners of the map.
Several chairs collected from various parts of the palace were arranged around the long table. The chairs Eight Gates: one was a carved wooden chair from the palace study, another was a leather swivel chair from the city hall, and the last was an ordinary bench that the rebels had brought from a tavern.
The people sitting in these chairs are the real reason this rebellion was able to succeed.
On the far left sat a bald man; his head was completely covered in tattoos instead of hair.
Sitting in the chair next to the bald man was an extremely obese middle-aged man.
He took up almost two seats by himself, his belly stretched the front of his silk shirt so tight the buttons were about to fly off, the gold chain around his neck was as thick as his little finger, and he wore four rings on his fingers, each with a different gemstone.
A tall, thin man was sitting in the chair on the far right.
He was wearing a stand-up collar military uniform, the epaulets of which had been torn off, leaving only two faded stitch marks.
His posture was completely different from the other two; his back was straight, his legs were together, and his hands were on his knees—a standard military posture.
He has a thin face, prominent cheekbones, and deep-set eyes; his gaze never wavers when he looks at people.
Prince didn't turn around; his gaze fell on a point on the map, and he pointed to the location of the capital, Alubarna.
"Actually, I prefer to call us the Revolutionary Army."
His voice was not loud, but his pronunciation was clear, with a slight upward inflection at the end of each word. This was a tone control skill that only someone with good public speaking training could master, ensuring that every word was precisely delivered to the listener's ears.
As he spoke, he slightly turned his palm, as if he were holding an invisible word and wanted to reveal it to everyone.
The bald man was sharpening the barbs of his short spear with a whetstone. The spear rested on his knee, and the whetstone slid between the barbs, making a rhythmic metallic scraping sound.
He didn't look up, but let out a very soft laugh through his nose.
The obese man didn't look up. He was using a gold nail file to trim the nail on his left middle finger, and after finishing, he put it to his lips and blew away the nail clippings.
"You can call yourself whatever you want, little prince, the Revolutionary Army, the rebels, the reading club, whatever..." He switched the nail file to his right hand, glanced at Prince, and his small eyes were full of shrewdness.
"Just don't forget what you promised us."
Prince turned around to face the long table.
"Alabasta is just the first step. All you need to do is help me eradicate the Nefertari Family."
He spoke of this without any change in expression, as if he were referring to a surname that had nothing to do with him.
"I will do what I promised you."
The obese man chuckled. The laughter was muffled and short, forced out of his thick throat.
He put down the nail file, leaned forward, and his stomach pressed against the leather swivel chair with a sharp squeaking sound. "Eliminate the Nefertari Family? Does that include you?"
His gaze moved down Prince's face to his chest, as if trying to find traces of the Nefertari Royal Family bloodline beneath his robes. "You are the eldest son, a true prince."
Prince stared at him, and the air in the hall suddenly felt heavy. The young face remained expressionless, staring into the fat man's eyes as if he were looking at something placed on a table waiting to be picked up.
"Dorovich," he said, his tone exactly the same as when he said "Alabasta"—calm and unhurried.
"Don't joke like that, let's figure out a way to take the capital right now."
Dorovich's smile froze for half a second, then he leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands on his stomach, and said nothing more.
The tall, thin man stood up from the chair with the crisp, clean movements characteristic of a soldier; his heels were together, his knees straight, as if the sandstone floor beneath his feet were a reviewing stand.
He walked to the long table and pointed to the markings around Alubarna.
"We don't have many troops." His voice was hoarse, each word carrying the dullness caused by long-term lack of sleep.
"The garrisons in the areas we occupy alone account for at least half of our current forces. How can we possibly have the spare capacity to attack Alubarna? Alubarna is the capital of Alabasta, its walls are twice as thick as those in Rainbase, and its garrison is certainly not small."
Prince laughed after hearing what he said.
That smile was completely different from his previous indifferent expression. His eyes were still cold, with the candlelight reflected in his pupils, like a tiny flame frozen in two blocks of black ice.
"Don't think I don't know you didn't put in much effort at all." His tone remained calm, but the temperature inside had dropped slightly.
"I'll handle the troop situation, but you also need to contribute your own men. Bring out your best resources, or don't blame me for turning against you later."
He turned and walked towards the entrance of the hall, the hem of his desert robe trailing on the sandstone floor. He paused at the door, without turning back, and said only one sentence.
"While I'm out, think about it: without me, who will protect what you took from Alabasta?"
The thick wooden door to the hall opened and closed behind him.
The square in front of the Rainbase Palace was originally a spice market. After the rebels captured Rainbase, they cleared out all the stalls in the market, and the empty space became a gathering place for civilians.
Several sandstone pillars stood around the square. The pillars originally bore the coat of arms of the Nefertari Royal Family, but the rebels had covered them up with lime plaster and painted their own symbol on them in red paint: a sword piercing the sun. It wasn't very well drawn, but it was eye-catching enough.
Several hundred people stood in the square, residents of the Rainbase, mostly merchants, spice traders, casino dealers, and their families.
They were gathered from their homes to the square by the rebels. Fear made them huddle together, but they dared not leave. Rebel soldiers stood under the sandstone pillars around the square, their bayonets gleaming coldly in the morning light.
When Prince walked up the steps at the north end of the square, his hood was still on, and his desert robe covered most of his body, revealing only his chin and lips.
A makeshift wooden platform had been erected on the steps; it was made from bar boards salvaged from the Rainbase Casino by the rebels, and it creaked when stepped on.
He stood on the wooden platform and then took off his hood.
A few people in the front row of the audience were stunned for a moment. They squinted and leaned forward, as if they couldn't believe the faces they were seeing.
A middle-aged woman nudged the man next to her with her elbow and said something as her lips moved.
The man shook his head, stared at Prince for a few more seconds, and then his expression changed from confusion to shock.
He recognized the face; he had seen it from afar three years ago at an audience at the Alubarna Palace. That was the last time Prince appeared in public, wearing a white robe, standing beside the King, waving to his subjects.
Later the king said he was dead.
"I know what you're thinking," Prince said. His voice didn't need an amplifier; the sandstone buildings in the square naturally amplified it, and every word reached the ears of the last row clearly.
"The king said I am dead, afflicted with a terminal illness that could not be cured." He paused, and silence enveloped the crowd. An old woman in the front row covered her mouth.
"I didn't die. I was just driven out of the palace by the king and my father."
He took half a step forward, spreading his palm towards the crowd, "The truth about the Nefertari Family's centuries-long rule over Alabasta is something not only you don't know, but even I didn't know until I opened the national treasury's expenditure ledger. Do you know how much Heavenly Tribute Alabasta pays to the World Government every year?"
He paused again. The audience was full of eyes. He knew that no one could answer at this moment, but that was the silence he wanted.
"It accounts for more than half of the royal family's total annual expenditure." He slammed the figure into the square, enunciating each word clearly. "And this money, every single Beli, comes from the irrigation ditches you dug in the desert, the sun-baked skin you shed in the spice fields, the bent backs you carried sacks on the docks. The Nefertari Family has lived in the Alubarna Palace for centuries, thanks to the blood and sweat of your generations of hard-working people. They owe you more than just an apology."
A young man clenched his fist in the audience.
"Alabasta is not Nefertari's Alabasta, it is your Alabasta. But your parents had nothing when they gave birth to you, and no one cared when your children starved to death."
He raised his voice slightly, his words cutting through the breaths of hundreds, "And in the Holy Land Mary Geoise, new palaces are always under construction, new Celestial Dragons are always being born, and beneath the foundation stone of every new palace lie your bones."
A low murmur arose among the young people in the audience. Several young people squeezed into the front row exchanged glances, their eyes holding a different kind of light.
"The Alabasta problem is just a microcosm of the world. The World Government is rotten to the core. The Celestial Dragons ride roughshod over all nations, and all kings, including my father, kneel at their feet. This world needs to be completely changed, and Alabasta will be the first spark to ignite this fire."
He took the last step forward, leaning his body over the edge of the platform, his long hair slipping down his shoulders like a flag tilted by the wind.
Join us, not for me, but for yourselves, for your parents, so that your future children will never again ask, "Why are we so poor while the people in the palace are so rich?" Alabasta doesn't need Nefertari; Alabasta needs you.
He stopped, and the square fell into a brief, deathly silence. People remained craning their necks, not even a cough escaped their lips.
Then the young man with his clenched fist raised his arm, not slowly, but with a sudden upward thrust, as if he wanted to pierce the sky above his head with his fist.
His lips were tightly pressed together, his eyes shone as if they had just been lit, and although his eye sockets were red, not a single tear fell.
Immediately afterwards, a second, third, and fourth arm rose in the crowd, like a lit fuse, spreading from the front of the stage to the edge of the square. Arms formed a forest.
No one shouted slogans, no one spoke, but when hundreds of arms were raised in the square at the same time, the silence was louder than any shout.
Prince stood on the wooden platform, looking at the densely packed arms below. His lips moved, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
That cold laugh was extremely light and brief, lingering on his face for only a moment before he withdrew it. He didn't need to show satisfaction; he only needed to know that these people already belonged to him.
On the sandstone pillars beside the square, the sword depicted on the rebel insignia faced the rising sun. Morning light pierced through the edge of the sword's tip, falling on Prince's slightly upturned profile.
He turned around, stepped down from the wooden platform, and his desert robe once again covered most of his face.
Several newly joined young people eagerly reached out their hands to him, but he didn't shake any of them. He simply walked forward with his eyes fixed straight ahead, his pace neither too fast nor too slow.
Rebel soldiers began guiding the newly recruited youths toward the registration point, and the crowd in the square moved slowly.
Prince had his back to the crowd, and his young face became indistinct again in the shadow of his hood, with only the faint scar under his left eye being illuminated by the morning light for a moment when the hem of his robe was lifted.