Chapter 1 Follow the Smile
"LUFFY! If we get out of this alive I'm gonna kill you!" The navigator of the Thousand Sunny yelled. Currently the Straw Hat Pirates were running from the Marines. Again. They were on a unknown island and very pissed about yesterdays events.
Yesterday
The famous Straw Hat crew had their Log Pose crushed when they were heading for the merman island. The Marines had somehow found them while they were sailing open water and decided to send hundreds of cannon balls flying their way. Luckily most of the cannon balls were either bounced off a rubber stomach or sliced in half by swords.
Except for one cannon ball that manage to slip by the captain when he was ogling the Government ships mascot, Blooey the Beluga. The cannon ball manage to hit near the helm where Nami, the navigator of the Straw Hat Pirates, was trying to steer the ship from going into the wrong currents and crashing into some huge coral reefs.
The explosion from the cannon ball sent the navigator flying onto the deck. When Nami 'landed', her left arm was across her chest. The same arm that had her sisters bracelet and the Log Pose on it. When Nami got up she found that she had a sharp pain shooting up across her wrist to her elbow and that her same arm had pieces of glass jabbed in. The navigator clutched her arm and ran back to the helm to steer the rudder back on course. Nami didn't have time to ponder where the glass came from until the Thousand Sunny was out of danger.
It was a miracle the ship hadn't crashed into any of the giant forests of coral in the water while Nami was on the deck. The current water they were sailing in was known as the Coral Scrap Currents. In this part of the Grand Line there were huge coral reefs right below the water and powerful currents all around them. There were hundreds of currents twisting in out of the coral. There were three currents that could guide you through the coral without any damage being taken to the ship. One of these currents would take you to the Calm Belt where tons of sea monsters resided. The other two would take you to a island. The two islands that you might be lucky enough to get to would be the merman island or Coral Wall Island.
Luffy had seen what had happened to Nami. Immediately rage surged through Luffy. He was angry at the Marines and him self. He had been to busy thinking how cool it would be to have a mascot and had let a cannon ball soar past him all the way to his nakama. "Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" Yelled the captain. His fist rammed through the hull of the Marines ship. Luffy's fist rocked the boat causing the Marines navigator who was struggling to keep the boat in the right current, over board. From lose of their navigator the Marines swerved right into the coral reefs. The boat began to sink, everyone was jumping into the water to escape from drowning. Luffy's arm had retracted a while ago which left him free to smile and wave at the poor marines as their ship sailed through the current.
"Nami-san! Are you all right?" Rang through Luffy's ears. Then he realized he had forgotten about Nami. After Luffy had ran over to the helm, he saw that everyone except Robin, who was standing outside the group of people, was huddled around Nami. Before he could push his way through the crowd, he heard his navigator yell out. "Move! I can't see where were heading!" Instantley everyone moved aside, giving Nami a good view of the front of the ship. Nami had a frown of concentration on her face as she stared ahead. She was wearing the same shorts and t-shirt she wore in Skypiea, the only difference this time was that her left arm looked slightly swolen and had small cuts all over it. Luffy was staring at her arm for some reason, there was something bothering him about her arm besides the fact that she was badly hurt.
"Nami maybe you should take a break from steering for awhile. I need to check your arm ." Chopper said timidly. He was afraid that she was going to yell at him. Chopper had been studying Nami's arm while he, Franky, Ussop, Sanji and Zoro, had been crowding her. Judging from Nami's face it look like she was going through a lot of pain. He figured that her arm was at least sprained or maybe even broken. "Nami! What the hell is up with this current!?" Yelled the ex-pirate hunter.
His out burst only got replied from a kick to the face by the resident Love Cook. "Shut it! Marimo! Can't you tell Nami-san is in pain!?" This was only the beginning of their fight. Everyone had pretty much gotten so used to their fighting they just ignored it.
"Chopper I can't take a break right now, were on a very dangerous current. If this boat goes to far to the left or right, our ship will be turned into scrap pieces of wood." Nami replied to Chopper. Chopper mearly nodded meekly. "Navigator-san, how long will it take for us to reach the next island?" The crews archeologist asked. "umm well you see…..I'm not sure… I think we are on the wrong current." Nami replied quietly. Everyone on board just stared wide eyed at Nami. Even Sanji and Zoro stopped their fighting, to turn and look at Nami. "What? What do you mean?" Franky the cyborg stuttered. "Wrong current? Oh God ! Were heading to the Calm Belt!" Ussop began to panic. "Oh wow! We finnaly get to sail on the Calm Belt!" Luffy exclaimed happily.
"No. I know for sure we aren't heading to the Calm Belt. That current we passed long before we met up with the Marines. But the current leading to Merman Island was right next to the current leading to Coral Wall Island. I think when I fell onto the deck, the boat must have swerved onto this current." Nami said, dashing her captains hope of going to the Calm Belt and getting a monster to be the Straw Hat Pirates mascot.
"Coral Wall Island? I heard about that place. Theres a giant wall of coral rising out of the water surrounding the island except for the two entrances. One of the entrances is surrounded by fleets of Marine ships and the other isn't because barely anyone has survived the currents to get through the entrance." Franky pondered out loud.
"Let me guess we are going through the entrance that barely anyone has gotten through." Ussop said. Nami only nodded. Ussop then proceeded in running around screaming 'oh God oh God were gonna die'.
"No were not Ussop! Not with Nami here to guide us!" Luffy, who had observing the conversation the entire time, reassured Ussop. Ussop merely looked at Luffy, blinked and started running around in circles, this time saying "oh Lord oh Lord save me!"
Nami, who was smiling at Luffy's faith in her was replaced by a vein starting to pop on her temple at Ussops reaction. "Shut Up!" Nami yelled then pounded Ussop on the head before quickly regaining control of the rudder.
"Hey! It's sunset that means its time for dinner!" Luffy yelled out loud. "So it is." Sanji said after taking a one last puff out of his cigarette and stared at slowly descending sun. "Well come on guys, I'll go make us some dinner." Sanji said as he took out a pouch and dropped his cigarette in.
"Great!" Yelled Franky. "I'll get the colas!" Everyone but Nami proceeded to the kitchen. Luffy stopped and realize Nami wasn't following. He turned around and asked "Nami? Aren't you coming?"
"Remember Luffy. I have to make sure we stay on course." Nami only smiled at her captain. "Well ok. See ya in a while." Luffy waved, then turned around and headed towards the kitchen. Luffy was a bit sad that Nami couldn't come, but he that thought disappeared when he smelled the delicious scent of Sanji's baby back ribs.
After Dinner
Pretty much everyone at dinner was still having a good time without Nami there except Luffy, who when had finnaly satisfied his hunger started to wonder about Nami. Luffy decided to go give her a plate of food. So Luffy took a plate from the cabinet and manage to use his food stealing abilities and grabbed the last baby back rib without anyone noticing. Everyone at the table was laughing so hard at Franky's ridiculous poses, that they failed to notice a certain captain sneak out the door.
"Hey Nami!" Luffy yelled as he ran up the stairs leading to the helm while trying to balance the plate. Nami who had been staring at the stars with a map in her lap, looked at Luffy in surprise.
"Luffy, what are you doing here?" Luffy only gave a his goofy smile and said "bringing you food, duh!" Nami smiled in reply. Luffy walked over to Nami and held the plate out in front of her. "um Luffy my hands are kinda of full right now." Nami said. Luffy blinked once then twice. "Oh let me steer while you eat then!" Luffy said as he set the plate down on the floor. "Alright." Nami said. Nami steered the ship with one hand and pointed to a certain constellation. "Ok see those stars in the shape of a banana?" Luffy stared at the sky for moment then turned to Nami. "That's not a banana it's a smile!" Nami then gave out a laugh. It had been a tiring day, she felt at ease when she laughed.
Luffy grinned. Today had been hard on Nami. He was glad he could make her laugh. After Nami had finished laughing. She stilled smiled and said "Yeah. Follow the smile!" Luffy grinned even more and took control of the rudder as Nami sat down to eat. While glancing between the stars and Nami, Luffy noticed that Nami was trying to move her left arm as little as possible. "Nami. I'm sorry I didn't protect you from the cannon ball." Luffy said sadly. "Don't worry about it Luffy, you were probably busy protecting someone else." Nami said. This only made Luffy feel guiltier.
"hmmm I can see the walls of Coral Wall Island, Luffy!" Nami announced happily. Nami had finished eating a while ago, and had started to relax and lean against the railing, because Luffy had insisted he continue steering because it was fun. "Hey me too!" Luffy shouted with excitement. The rest of the crew were still down in the kitchen, having a party.
Franky, Ussop and Sanji then burst through the kitchen door. Ussop had confetti hanging off his long nose. "Hey guys! Why are you up here?" Ussop shouted from the deck. "More importantly why are you two alone up here?" Franky asked, raising one of his eyebrows. "What!? Nami-san! You wouldn't betray me for Luffy would you?" Sanji burst out crying. Nami just sighed at Sanji's behavior while and said "nothing was going on" Luffy frowned a bit a Nami's responsed but forgot about his sadness almost instantaneously
"Oh cook-san! Can you please get me a glass of water?" Robin's gentle voice came from the kitchen. Immediately Sanji stopped crying and his eyes turned into big hearts. "Of course Robin-chan!" Sanji then went into the kitchen. Then Chopper came out after Sanji went into the kitchen.
"Oh Nami I really need to look at your arm." Chopper said eyeing Nami's arm. Nami was leaning against the rail with her right arm clutching her left just above the elbow. The pieces of glass were gone and the little cuts had stopped bleeding. Nami nodded and replied "yeah! My arm's really staring to hurt now. Luffy could please steer for a bit longer? We'll be there in about 20 minutes."
Luffy nodded with a big grin. "Ok!" He practically yelled. Then that thing that had been bothering Luffy again, showed up once more. Then it hit him. "Nami wheres the Log Pose?" Nami's back froze up. Nami was currently sitting cross legged on the floor with Chopper tending to her arm. Nami gave out a nervous laugh. "Well you see…um.. the Log Pose broke when I fell." Nami said nervously. "What!?" Ussop, Franky, Chopper and Luffy yelled out at the same time. Their eyes were popping out of their sockets.
"So how are we gonna get to Merman Island?" Franky asked while trying to block out Ussops screaming. "Luckily, the coral walls at Coral Wall Island bock out the magnetic field the island gives out, so all we need to do is get another Log Pose from Coral Wall Island and it will lead us to Merman Island. Though there is a slight problem…" Nami said the last part quietly.
"What problem?" Chopper asked who had started to bandage Nami's arm. "Well you know about the two entrances to the island? Well the entrance were using right now is only entrance, so we can't exit the island through here. We have to go around the island to the entrance guarded by the-"Nami winced at the pain shooting through her arm that Chopper was bandaging. "-fleets of Marine ships."
"yeah so? I can just destroy all those ships." Luffy said confidently. Ussop had stopped screaming to yell at Luffy. "Are you insane!? There isn't just one fleet! Theres at least 4 of them! That means hundreds of ships!"
"Im with Luffy!" Franky said cracking his knuckles. "huh?Why are there so many ships there?" Luffy asked confusedly.
Chopper smiled at this. "Because Coral Wall Island is famous for their coral that speeds up healing! When you ground up the coral into a powered and put it on cuts the wounds heal in less than 3 days!" Chopper exclaimed proudly. "Oh so the Marines want the coral for themselves." Luffy said while taping his chin with his index finger.
"Right and on top of getting past the Marines we have to go back to the very beginning of Coral Scrap Currents to catch the current leading to Merman Island." Nami said now that her arm was fully bandaged.
"Oh Nami you sprained your arm, so make sure to be careful with it or you might break your arm." Chopper said to Nami. Nami nodded. "Thanks Chopper!"
By now the Thousand Sunny was sailing past the coral walls and into the harbour. It was around midnight so it was dark making it hard to dock the boat. There were two docks. One of them had a big Marine boat in it. By the looks of it, it was at least captained by an admiral by the size of it, Nami observed. Nami thought she would get a better look of it in the morning when it was light out. Nami directed Luffy to dock the ship in the docks opposite of the Navy boat. She then commanded Zoro, Sanji, and Franky to take down the sail with their pirate mark on it, just in case the villagers weren't friendly to pirates.
After the long night, the Straw Hat crew decided to go to bed.
Morning
"Ahhhhhh!" Nami said as she stretched. Nami always woke up at early in the morning to watch the sunset. It was her favorite part of the day. Nami started to walk up to the figure head of the ship. To her surprise she found her captain frowning and staring at the sunset.
"Why are you up so early?" Nami said from behind Luffy. Luffy replied "Oh nothing just bored of sleeping." Luffy said with a disheartened sigh. Nami smiled at her captains response but that changed to a small frown at her captains sad voice. "Luffy? Whats wrong." Nami said with concerned voice. Her captains strange behavior worried her.
"Its just….It's just.." Nami was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with Luffy. Then Luffy exclaimed tears in his eyes. "I can't sit on this figure head! Its to pointy!"
Pow!
Luffy was now on the ground with a huge bump swelling of the side of his head. "You moron!" Nami yelled at him. "I was actually worried about you!" Luffy was a bit shocked at Nami's display of emotion but the smiled. Even Nami was bit shocked that she daid that out loud. "Sorry Nami!" Luffy said. "yeah well don't do anything like that again ok?" Nami said trying to recover from her pervious outburst. Luffy nodded and grinned at Nami, all she could do was smile back.
"Will you two shut up!?" Zoro said as he burst through the door leading to the mens sleeping quarters. Behind were the half-awake male crew members. Robin also came out of the womens room and leaned against the door frame, giggling at everyone but mostly Zoro in his boxers.
"Yeah. Could you two save your flirting when everyone isn't sleeping?" Ussop said groggily while rubbing sleep from his eyes.
" WE -THEY- WERE NOT FLIRTING!" Sanji and Nami both yelled at Ussop. "ok ok" Ussop said putting his hands up in defense. He then murmured quietly "sure sounded like it" "WHAT WAS THAT?!" Once again Nami and Sanji yelled. As Nami and Sanji prepared to beat up Ussop. Zoro asked "Should we go look for a Log Pose now" Zoro had been told what happened last night by Franky.
"How about we go to the town square and decide what we should do from there?" Robin asked. Everyone (except Ussop, Nami and Sanji cause they were busy) agreed to this.
Town Square
The crew had been caught by the owner of the dock and had to pay the fee fro docking their ship. Strangely enough, the owner didn't recognize them as the pirates that had 'declared'war against the government. He didn't even recognized Luffy who had a 300 million bounty on him. Even stranger neither did any one else on the streets recognize them. The crew found this quite weird. By the time the crew reached the square most of the shops had opened.
"What is up with this place?" Franky said as he looked around at all the different shops and bars. There seemed to be more bars then restaurants in this town. The town did have a sort of scary gangster look to it. "It is strange indeed." Robin said in agreement with Franky.
"well it just works to our advantage if no one recognizes us." Zoro said, not really caring.
"Last night I saw a big Marine ship in the docks next to us. I haven't seen one Marine all day." Nami said, who was probably the most suspicious of the crew. "Same. The only wanted posters I've seen are photos of pirates that died years ago." Ussop said.
"They should at least recognize me!" Luffy pouted like a two year old. "This place doesn't seem very 'updated'." Chopper said. Everyone nodded in silent agreement.
"well enough about the town. We still have to decide what were all going to do." Robin said breaking the silence. "well I'll go restock on food." Sanji said.
"And I'll come!" Luffy shouted. "umm no Luffy. You can go with Ussop while I go check out that ship at the docks. After that I'll look for a Log Pose." Nami said, grabbing Luffy's rubber ear and pulling him to Ussop. "Awwww man!" Luffy groaned.
"Well I go with Sanji, I need to get some more cola's anyways." Franky said. After that Robin said she would try and find out more about the town, Zoro still needed to get a new sword after the sword (he got from the shop keeper in Logue Town) broke while fighting CP9. Chopper said he saw a clinic on the way to the square and he wanted to see if they sold any of the healing coral.
Just as everyone was about to split up, they heard yelling from a bar nearby called the Crooked Crab. A women was yelling at three Marines to get out of her bar.
"Geez, women we protect this town from pirates and to thanks us you yell at us?" One of the Marines said. He had greasy brown hair and was very tall and skinny. "Protect us? The only thing we need protecting from is you guys!" The women screamed back at them.
"Watch it women!" Another Marine said. He had short black hair and was very fat. He pulled out a club, to threaten the women. The Straw Hat crew had been watching the entire time. The captain decided to put a end to this.
"Hey you Marines, look over here!" Luffy called out them. When the marines turned their heads to look at him, Luffy stretched his arm and punched the fat marine. The two other marines, were so shocked they gave out loud girly screams. The third marine who looked a lot like the tall skinny marine, pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew it. Immediately 20 marines ran out side the Crooked Crab, prepared to fight.
Luffy began to throw his arms towards them, when Nami used her right arm to grab his. "Luffy stop! We can't fight them here! You could bring buildings down and hurt innocent people." Luffy brought his arm back down to his side. "So what do we do then?" Luffy asked Nami.
"RUN!" Nami screamed as she and the entire group ran thorugh the streets. The crew was running down a street when they came, a road that split into four different roads. The crew without thinking split up. Sanji and Franky into the middle right path, Ussop and Chopper into the right path, Zoro and Robin into the middle left path,and Luffy and Nami down the left path.
Too bad for Nami and Luffy they took the only path that led to a dead end. The marines realized they were going to reach a dead end so they decided to follow them.
"Luffy, if we get out of this alive, Im gonna kill you!" Nami said to Luffy as she stared at the marines in front of her. They had reached the dead end. With no were to go and they couldn't fight them because they might damage the surrounding buildings, that could collaspe on them.
"Surrender! Who ever you are!" The leader of the marines yelled at them. Luffy and Nami slowly raised their hands in a defeated gesture. Suddenly out of now where a smoke bomb landed in front of the marines. The bomb went off. The smoke was so dark that Nami had to hold on to Luffy's arm because she couldn't see him or anything else.
Then through the screams and yells of the Marines, Nami heard a girls voice whisper to her. "Get the rubber boy to pull you and him to the roof top." Of course Nami obeyed the voice she didn't have much choice.
Nami was still holding tightly onto Luffy's arm, then she whisper to Luffy. "Luffy grab the ledge on the roof and pull us up there." Luffy replied "ok!". Then Nami felt her feet being lifted off the ground.
Nami covered her mouth with her shirt to keep the smoke out of her lungs as she breathed. Before she knew it Nami was on the roof top staring down at the smoke filled alley below.
Then she heard that same voice that saved her and Luffy from the marines.
"That was fun!"
Authors Note: Hey this is my first multicoated one piece fic! I continue if I get at least three reviews per chapter! I cant promise that all chapters will be as long as this one was. Also the whole 'nobody recognizes them' thing, I will try to explain in the next chapter! Also there is an made up character so yeah! Please Read and Review!
