South America Arc

The **South America Arc** is the eleventh story arc of *Dr. Stone* as well as the second story arc in The Truth of the Petrification Saga.

After escaping Stanley Snyder and establishing a peace treaty between Brody's forces and the Kingdom of Science's prisoners of war, Senku and his remaining allies venture to South America to find the source of the petrification. With Dr. Xeno as their prisoner, they must find the source and set up Superalloy City before Stanley can stop them.

## Summary

### Exit, Persued by a Boat

After narrowly escaping Stanley's grasp, Senku and the others are panicking as they are now being pursued by Stanley and his soldiers, fully armed, and having commandeered the Perseus with the sole goal of retrieving Xeno. While Stanley's men prepare the Perseus for warfare, Matsukaze feigns a worse injury to get brought onboard the Perseus, where Ginro is hiding. Meanwhile, Senku and Xeno begin discussing what they know about Why-man.

With Chrome's help, they work together using their respective observations of the petrification to pinpoint the origin of the original petrification: 3° 7' South latitude, 60° 1' West longitude, which is near Manaus, Brazil.

### A Brand-New Bestie

Needing to make frequent landfall to replenish fuel for their stolen boat, one night Taiju sees glowing letters in the sky spelling "HELL". In the morning, they follow the letters and discover a small hut inhabited by Chelsea Childe, a young geographer who had gotten lost after reviving alone. After clothing and bespeckling her, she joins the team as a guide.

Recommending they build motorcycles to cross the Andes mountain range, the Perseus begins catching up to them. Using Chelsea's kites, they build a sail and speed away, gaining some more time. For a stronger distraction, they use the American's radar expert Leonard's skills against him by setting the amphibious Mobile Lab out towards the Panama Canal as a decoy. With the Perseus diverted, the team is free to collect rubber from the shore.

Quickly catching up to and destroying the Mobile Lab, Stanley hastens back to where they last saw Xeno's ship with renewed fervor. With only days to build before Stanley catches up again, the team craft 6 motorcycles. They successfully escape, but at the cost of Tsukasa and Hyoga getting shot in the shoulders, preventing them fighting effectively.

### Medusa Mania

At Corn City, Homura retrieves the Petrification Weapon from the bottom of the river. Brody agrees to let the Kingdom of Science examine and fix it for medical purposes, but remains wary of their intent. Ryusui recommends they revive a watchmaker to take it apart, and thus they revive Joel Gear. After some tinkering, Joel gets it working and petrifies himself. When the others try to examine it, they realize Joel had just managed to squeeze one last beam out of it, but at least it wasn't permanently broken.

The team arrive at the Andes and Luna explains her relationship with Senku. Luna reveals it was somewhat under duress and Senku only agreed to gain more people on their side, but Luna is over the moon about it nonetheless. They reorganize the weight distribution across the motorcycles, then continue traveling. They reach the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

Unable to track them by plane through the rainforest, Stanley opts to cut off their escape route instead. At the same time, the other group trek through dangerous territory until they reach an enormous pile of petrification devices.

Testing the devices, they discover they're all duds. With the sheer number of them now available to the team, they begin smashing them open and examining the pieces, hoping to help Joel's research in Corn City. To stay safe from Stanley, they build a stealth ship with slanted edges, however it's not very effective until they cover the outside in petrification devices.

Conferring with Joel, they discover that the power source appears to be a diamond, without any blackening or cracks. To fix the one in Corn City, they tell the members there to make a diamond. After some troubleshooting, they succeed, however they're too small for using in the device and thus they need to find naturally-occurring diamonds elsewhere. Senku informs them that this will be their last transmission, as they can't risk Stanley finding their loction.

### Stone Stronghold

Arriving at Araxá, home to countless rare materials, they begin building a fort for their final battle against Stanley. Their goal is to retake the Perseus to continue travelling around the globe, while avoiding getting murdered. The fighters aren't optimistic about their chances, but the scientists begin devising traps that may give them an advantage. Kaseki continues struggling to get even a single device to work while the others think up plans that can use them once they're complete.

Thinking harder, Kaseki and Joel try to figure out what they're missing, Kaseki has a breakthrough and discovers that all the diamonds are cut in a particular way to align the cleavage planes. At the same time, Suika heads far away from the battlefield with Francois, intending to revive everyone after they get petrified according to their plan, but comes across Stanley's attack force. Suika reveals herself in order to save Charlotte from a spider bite.

Not understanding the soldiers' orders, Suika bolts while Francois throws a knife to Matsukaze and Ginro in order to free themselves from their ropes. Ginro tries to fight back but his stick is no match for guns, and yet none of the shots fired were aimed to kill. Francois surrenders, trusting Stanley to act as a good solider, but not before sending a message via radio to Corn City.

### Final Battle

With still no working device, the Kingdom needs to buy all the time they can for Kaseki. Ever hot-tempered, Kohaku races across the treetops to where they last saw Stanley's squad. Using the recorded gunfire Chrome had set up as trap, Kohaku, Tsukasa, and Hyoga use it as an opening to their attack, hoping to destroy the communication device on Leonard's back. They succeed, at the cost of their lives.

Sending Luna and Chelsea away to safety, the rest stay in the fort, hoping for a miracle. Stanley's men begin their assault, covering the fort in gunfire and grenades. Taiju and Ryusui are grievously injured. With no time left and only failures, Kaseki receives a call from Joel: he successfully used Kaseki's guess to get one of the devices working! Unfortunately, Brody immediately takes it away from him and locks it in a safe. With nothing left to lose, the prisoners in Corn City fight back. In a suicidal charge to retake the petrification device, Magma succeeds in opening the safe. Joel reaches towards it, but has his arm trapped inside by Brody. Thinking he'd won, Brody converses with Joel, who was simply distracting him from the radio on his watch, which was tuned to Why-man's repeating message: "12,800,000 meters, one second". The device activates.

With the wave incoming, Chrome and Senku discuss options for revival since all their backups have been captured. Before Senku can do what he did at Treasure Island, he gets shot. With the light as a distraction, Ukyo frees Francois, who frees the others. Suika escapes with the bag of Revival Fluid. Xeno and Stanley finally reunite, but it's short-lived as they need to survive the beam. Realizing Suika stole the fluid, they give chase. As a team, they manage to set up one of the bottles on top of their tower just as the beam hits, with Suika waiting below. Xeno and Senku acknowledge the battle is over for now, as the world is petrified once more.

## Story Impact

* Stanley learns Senku's group is heading for South America.
	+ Stanley keeps Ginro and Matsukaze aboard the Perseus.
* The Perseus has had weapons added by Stanley and his unit.
* Senku and Xeno compare notes on their respective petrifications to pinpoint the original source of the beam.
* Chelsea, a genius geographer, is found and joins the Kingdom of Science.
* The Kingdom choose to cut across the Andes to get to Araxá and the source of the petrification faster, while Stanley takes the Perseus around the continent.
* The mobile lab is destroyed by Stanley.
* A huge pile of petrification devices is found, allowing the Kingdom to do more research.
	+ None of them are functional.
* Joel, a watchmaker, is revived to help with the petrification device research.
* Fort Medusa is built in Araxá for the final showdown against Stanley.
* Several members of the Kingdom die trying to give more time for the craftsmen to fix a petrification device.
* The world is petrified again.

## Characters Introduced

* Chelsea Childe
* Joel Gear
* Leonard Maxwell

## Inventions in Order of Acquisition

*For a complete list of inventions in more detail, see Inventions and Discoveries.*

* Rubber
* Tires
* Motorcycles
* Fax Machine
* Rubber Boots
* Diamonds

## References

1. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 170
2. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 171
3. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 172
4. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 173
5. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 174
6. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 175
7. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 176
8. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 177
9. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 178
10. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 179
11. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 180
12. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 181
13. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 182
14. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 183
15. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 184
16. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 185
17. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 186
18. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 187
19. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 188
20. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 189
21. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 190
22. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 191
23. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 192
24. ↑ Dr. Stone Manga: Chapter 193