Of Bachelors, Bets, and Pirates
Summary: The new Pirate King is more popular than he knows, and the race is on. Who will be the ultimate winner of Luffy's affections (and the throne at his side), and shouldn't Nami be worried instead of taking bets?
Note: Takes place after the theoretical end of One Piece, when Luffy is Pirate King.
Disclaimer:
Little Sis': Hahahahahahahahahahahaha—[chokes on own spittle] herk! Blck! Hack! Cough! Cough!
Big Sis': What she's trying to say is no, we don't own One Piece, just in case for some strange reason you thought we did.
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It is a universal truth that every Pirate King needs a Queen. And with fame, wealth, and power on the line, there are inevitably plenty of eager candidates. At that point, the betting pool was inevitable.
The new Pirate King himself, a certain Monkey D. Luffy, was the only one oblivious. Young, strong, and charming, his only flaw as a potential husband was his childish cluelessness. However, even that couldn't deter women when there was all the money in One Piece at stake.
Nami was at the center, of course. High stakes betting? She probably started it. She was certainly the only one bold enough to go to all the candidates and personally ask them what they thought their odds should be. This worked some of them into quite a frenzy, and soon certain candidates were prepared to charge the Sunny-Go to force the Pirate King to chose between them. Concerned that certain of her nakama might then use her money-cows for target practice, Nami proposed that they all take neat and orderly turns at the object of their affections.
Nami decided to send the candidates forth in order of least likely to most likely (according to the betting pool). She didn't tell them this, of course. Instead, she sent each one a letter offering them an introduction and at least a few minutes of the Pirate King's time.
Alvida thought she was first because she was so beautiful. But she if she had been last, she would have thought it was because she was beautiful. Frankly, Alvida thought everything in this world happened because she was beautiful, starting when she discovered mirrors when she was one and a half. At three, she almost drowned from staring at herself in the bathtub for too long. Some (cough Coby) might say it was unfortunate that she didn't. The bathtub incident also gave her an aversion to mirrors, which might explain why she was so delusional during her fat period. Still, now Alvida was slim and pretty, which led some people to wonder why Nami put her at the bottom of the list. People who didn't actually know her, that is.
Alvida stormed onto the deck of Sunny-Go, dressed in a flowing red dress that showed a great deal of leg. She demanded, "Luffy, am I beautiful?"
He started at her. "No," he said. Then his eyes went back to his fishing rod.
"Then how beautiful am I…WHAT?!"
Luffy didn't really react, simply shifted his fishing pole a little.
Alvida stuttered, "But…but…I'm Alvida, the most beautiful woman in the world!"
"Who?" Luffy asked blankly. A small tinge of recognition went through him, but unfortunately for Alvida, it was only a hazy memory of a fat lady with a club. "You don't have a club, so you can't be Alvida," Luffy said.
"Yes I do!" Alvida's spiked club appeared from behind her back. But Luffy wasn't even watching. It was time for plan B. After all, knocking a man over the head was how Alvida's mother had gotten her father.
"Hi-ya!" Alvida screeched, bringing the club down. It bounced off. "Huh?" (Alvida's self-centeredness meant that she couldn't remember the details of her past encounters with Luffy.)
Here was where Luffy would normally explain (again) that he was a rubber man. Unfortunately for her, Luffy was no longer paying attention. "I think I have a bite!" he cried, pulling on the fishing rod.
Alvida brought the club down again, even harder. It bounced off and hit her on the head. With a moan, she collapsed onto the deck, unconscious. The last thing she remembered as she sunk into darkness was the slimly scales of a giant unicorn-fish flopping on top of her.
Nami pressed a button on her stopwatch with a great deal of satisfaction. Anyone who had betted on Alvida lasting longer than five minutes would be donating their money to the Bank of Nami today. She called, "Zoro, carry Candidate Number One off the ship."
Zoro stopped training and moved to obey. He knew from years of experience that it was easier and less painful just to go along with Nami. Still, he had to ask, "Why did you even give the crazy woman a chance to begin with?"
Nami shrugged. "If the first person succeeded, I'd make less money."
Even Zoro, who barely knew her, couldn't deny that Alvida was a sure fail.
Alvida: Eliminated. Clocked time: Three minutes fifteen seconds (and that was being generous).
Some people wondered why Nami would include men as well as woman in her list of candidates. Did she know something about her captain that they didn't? Or was she simply being open-minded?
Her own crew knew better. As Zoro had succinctly put it, double the candidates meant double the money.
When he first received his invitation letter, Mr. Bon Clay leaped with joy and twirled about the room, then put his entire life's savings on himself. Next he went shopping for expensive clothes—which frankly accomplished nothing, thanks to his bad taste—the first thing he brought was a large pink sombrero and an oversized guitar. Operation: Serenade was in action.
Nami almost regretted her grand plan when, at two in the morning, the Sunny-Go was infected by the bellowing sound of the Okama Way chant. She truly regretted it when the chant was joined by additional caterwauling of nonsensical romantic phrases accompanied by the strumming of what could only logically be a guitar, but sounded like the dying screams of a tortured animal.
"Must not interfere with the bet…must not lose money…" she muttered frantically to herself as she clutched her stop watch.
Fortunately for her, Luffy chose that moment to intervene.
"Bon Clay! What are you doing?" he cried exuberantly, running out of his room and leaping off the deck to greet his serenader.
"Love! This is the art of love!" Bon Clay cried.
"Interesting. Can I sing too?"
"Why, of course!"
Luffy said, "But I don't know any love songs. Can't we just sing a hundred bottles of beer on the wall?"
"Anything for you, Luffy!"
"But we can't sing a hundred bottles of beer on the wall without beer."
"You're right, Luffy."
"Sanji has a new case of rum in the kitchen…follow me! But watch out for the bear trap! And the pit with spikes!"
"Lead the way, Luffy!"
Nami listened in for a little longer, but when Luffy and Bon Clay started dancing around the room arm and arm singing about friendship, she concluded that the former Mr. 2 had long since forgotten his original objective, and thus had forfeited.
Later, as Nami was sipping drinks and tallying up her winnings, Robin commented, "You do realize that Luffy will want you to give back Mr. 2's money. He considers him to be a friend."
Nami shrugged. "I knew that from the beginning. But I am keeping a portion as compensation for that blasted serenade." Nami was willing to be generous mainly because the okama didn't have very much money to begin with—certainly not compared to what she was raking in from her avid world-wide watchers. But on the plus side, Bon Clay had also persuaded all of his crew to bet on him, and since Luffy hadn't befriended any of them…she had no obligation to return any of their money.
Mr. Bon Clay: Eliminated. Clocked time: Eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds.
Smoker stared at the letter in front of him. It did not change. Was this some kind of joke? If so, the culprits would pay. Possibly with blood. He called, "Tashigi!"
The glasses-wearing marine appeared in the doorway. "Sir?"
"Do you know if there really is a betting pool for the heart of the King of Pirates, and if so why they would send me a letter?"
"You got one too, sir?" she exclaimed in surprise.
"And what are all these X and O marks?"
"I believe they stand for hugs and kisses, sir."
"Ah. Then there's no chance of this being a competition to rip his heart out of his body?"
"I don't see how doing that would make you the Queen of Pirates, sir," Tashigi said, reading the letter over his shoulder.
Smoker could only shake his head in amazement. "Insanity," he muttered, carefully lighting the letter on fire with the end of his cigar.
Tashigi said, "I know just how you feel, sir. For some reason they made me Candidate Number Four, which I think means I'm even more popular in the betting pool than you."
"Of course you're more likely! I mean, no offense intended, but at least you're a woman."
"He's not my type, sir."
"What is your type?" Smoker asked, before he could stop himself.
Tashigi pushed up her glasses in contemplation. "Well, I think I'm attracted to men with large scars across their chest, a strong sense of chivalry, and the ability to wield three swords at once. Oh, and I'm rather partial to green hair."
Smoker blinked. "That's a very specific list."
"What are you implying? I don't like pirates!"
"Huh?" Smoker thought about asking her if she was on her period, but that last time he'd asked a woman that, she had been, and she'd told him to go smoke a tampon—and then tried to enforce her demand. He was still traumatized.
And to think that had been a plump and normally pleasant forty-year old mother of three children. He didn't know what Tashigi would do, and he didn't plan on finding out.
But his second in command had already moved on. "If we aren't interested, I don't think we need to show up, sir."
Smoker realized, "But this is a clue to the Pirate King's location! Our duty obligates us to use it!"
"Well, sir, you could show up and try to capture him, if you don't mind everyone thinking that you're romantically interested in him."
Smoker shuddered. "I never received this letter. Understood?"
"The feeling is mutual, sir."
Smoker: Forfeited. Clock time: Zero. Tashigi: Forfeited. Clock time: Zero.
Kalifa was only in it for the money.
She and her fellow CP-9 agents were slowly getting used to operating without a government funded budget, and frankly they weren't enjoying it. Even so, Kalifa wasn't desperate enough to approach her old enemies, and certainly not for marriage of all things…but her comrades were, and they also saw the letter. Lucci had practically ordered her to "secure the target." Well, using her seductive skills for a mission was nothing new for Kalifa.
Being a bubble woman, her natural element was the bathtub. Kalifa could hardly see herself relating to someone like Monkey D. Luffy on a mental or emotional level, so she snuck onto the Sunny-Go and into the bathroom, filled up the bathtub, set up some scented candles, and stripped off her clothes.
She had been prepared to wait for a couple hours. Not a couple days. Her skin was starting to get wrinkled and she'd eaten all the chocolate delicacies she'd prepared.
After three days, she'd started to think that something was wrong. But just when despair was setting in…she heard the creak of footsteps approaching. A hand turned the doorknob.
With deliberate pose, Kalifa slowly rose from the bathtub, covered with almost see-through bubbles that seductively titillated viewers. She tilted herself at an angle so that the light hit her body just right, holding out a heart-shaped bar of soap in an open invitation.
For one long second, two gazes met…and the bar of soap slowly tumbled from her hand and landed in the water below. There was scream and a thud, and Usopp hit the floor. The poor sharpshooter had only dropped by the captain's bathroom looking for some toothpaste.
Chopper called, "Usopp, what's wrong? Are you injured? Someone call a doctor!" After a few moments, the reindeer remembered that he was a doctor, and ran in to help.
Seeing the sharpshooter lying prone on the floor, the doctor began to drag him off to the medical ward, calling, "Usopp's been attacked!" To Kalifa's mortification, he didn't even notice her.
All crew members within earshot ran to his aid. Sanji was the first to the scene.
He noticed Kalifa. Sanji's eyes bulged out of his head, and warped into the shape of hearts. "Mellorine!" he cried, running forward, arms outstretched. "It's a goddess! My very own Venus has been born from the sea foam!"
His face was stopped by a foot, which although bare still had enough strength to send him crashing backwards though the door.
Zoro dodged Sanji's flying body, then stepped through the door. Calmly, he said, "You. Woman. Are you one of those weirdos Nami has been inviting here?"
A tad oppressed by the incredible aura of the Greatest Swordsman in the World, she said, "Err, yes."
"Did you attack Usopp?" Somehow, she knew her life hung in balance.
"No! He fainted! And I'm sorry about your other friend, the blond, I didn't exactly mean to-"
Zoro dismissed that with a snort. "What are you doing in a bathtub?"
She sunk back into the water, mortified. "Waiting for Luffy…"
He snickered. "In his bathtub? I have news for you: Luffy's idea of taking a bath is either accidentally falling into the ocean or waiting for it to rain. Every so often Nami gets tired of the smell and drags him off to the nearest tub to half-drown him, but he's never coming in here voluntarily."
No money was worth this, Kalifa decided. Pausing only to grab her clothes, she escaped out the window.
Kalifa: Eliminated. Clocked time: Three days, thirteen hours, and twenty-two seconds.
Although she had a fixed list of candidates, Nami was willing to allow anyone with the inclination to try for the prize. Why? Because more people meant more bets, and more money for her. However, the participants did have to be reasonably high profile, so people would be willing to bet on them (and so that every smuck off the street with Cinderella fantasies didn't storm the Sunny-Go).
Unfortunately for Nami, Buggy the Clown qualified as high-profile.
The world cringed when he submitted his name to the betting pool, but fortunately for their delicate eyes, Buggy had no actual romantic interest in Luffy. A few stalkerish tendencies, maybe, but no romantic interest.
Unfortunately for Buggy, unlike Smoker he had no Tashigi to explain to him that stealing the heart of Luffy did not involve removing it directly from his chest. Oops?
Buggy showed up at the Sunny-Go armed to the teeth, with metal protection covering his every available surface. Normally, he would have been too cowardly to even think of challenging the King of Pirates, but part of his mind kept insisting that Luffy was still the same crack-pot kid he'd almost killed twice, and thus couldn't possibly be out of his league. That, and after he'd drunkenly declared his intentions in public, he couldn't disappoint his adoring fans.
Nami lurked in the background with her stopwatch, secretly disgusted. Buggy by all rights should have been the first she got out of the way, but he'd only applied now (after the game had started), and by her own rules she couldn't find any reason to reject him. She silently swore that if he screwed up her plans too badly, she would have his red nose as a trophy on her wall.
Aware of the viewers watching world-wide through the Den-Den Mushi, Buggy summoned up all his courage and struck a magnificent pose, arm stretched forward, and shouted, "I've come for your heart, Pirate King!"
Franky, who was making some adjustments to the side of the ship, accidentally smashed his thumb with a hammer. "WHAAAAAT?" he cried.
Robin looked up from the book she was reading on deck, and extended a helping hand (protruding from the deck) to Franky. "You should put a bandage on that," she said.
"I'll be fine," he said manfully.
Still reading her book, Robin said, "Our captain is off raiding the kitchen, Mister Clown. Would you like to come back later?"
On cue, Luffy was thrown onto the deck, with Sanji shouting behind him, "And stay out!"
Robin said, "And he appears to be here now. Luffy, Nami brought another visitor for you."
"Does he have food?" the Pirate King asked.
Buggy shouted, "No, I'm not your delivery boy! I'm planning to force you to submit to me."
Robin's eyebrows raised slightly. Franky hit his other thumb with the hammer.
Luffy said mildly, "If you want to fight, come back later. I'm still hungry." He ran back towards the kitchen for a second try.
Buggy shouted after his vanishing foe, "You can eat to your heart's content in the afterlife, once I take your head!"
Robin said, "You seem to be a bit confused, Mister Clown. The organ at stake here is the heart, not the brain."
Buggy said dismissively, "Heart, head, it doesn't matter as long as he ends up dead."
A smile began to tease the corners of Robin's lips. Chuckling, she said, "You do understand that the title at stake here is that of the Queen of Pirates?"
Buggy declared, "I don't want to be Queen of Pirates, I want to be King of Pirates!"
Robin shook her head sadly. "I don't think Luffy would accept the Queen position. He's always been very fixated on being King of Pirates."
Buggy said, "That won't be a problem once I show him who's on top!"
Franky dropped his hammer on his foot. Robin's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. She gasped, "Maybe I was wrong, but did you really come here to compete for Luffy's hand in marriage?"
"What? No!" Buggy screamed.
"That would be the whole purpose of this competition," Robin informed him.
Buggy cried, "I'm not here to romance him, I'm here to impale him!"
Franky managed to hit himself on his own forehead with the hammer. Reeling back and clutching his head in his hands, he cried, "Keep it in the privacy of your own head, man! No one wants to hear about your twisted fantasies!"
Robin was unable to contain her laughter any longer.
Buggy shouted, "Stop laughing and tell your captain to come and face me like a man!"
Luffy poked his head out. "Hey, what's so funny, guys?" he asked, beaming broadly.
Franky cried, "Watch yourself, captain, he's a dangerous nymphomaniac!"
Rage overcame his sense and Buggy charged for Luffy, waving an axe over his head.
A bolt of lightning descended from the sky and struck him down. Nami had disqualified Buggy for trying to kill the love target.
Staring down at the clown's twitching body, Luffy commented, "That's the weirdo from Loguetown! He sure does attract a lot of lightning."
Nami did in fact steal Buggy's red nose in retaliation for his obnoxiousness. However, this wasn't enough to appease her wrath when she realized that no one had bet on Buggy, not even his own crew. This meant that as the "house" Nami took losses, and nothing infuriated Nami like losing money. Her revenge would be swift and horrific.
Buggy awoke on Mr. 2's ship. "Where am I?" he muttered groggily.
Bon Clay danced in and hugged him. "My new okama comrade! Don't worry, Nami told me all about your newly declared way of life. I'll train you in everything you need to know! Oh, by the way, there's named Red-Haired Shanks calling on the Den-Den Mushi for you."
He held out the speaker. From it, Shank's voice bellowed, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Buggy, you should have told have told me, I would have been a supportive--HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Buggy threw the Den-Den Mushi to the floor and buried his face in his hands. That was when he realized that his nose was gone.
Buggy the Clown: Disqualified. Clocked time: five minutes ten seconds.
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To Be Continued...
Little Sis': Next time on Of Bachelors, Bets, and Pirates: Vivi, Boa Hancock, and Nami duke it out for Luffy's affections! It's a three-way cat fight! No, really. Would I lie to you?
Big Sis': Yes. Yes, you would. Stop trying to scare away our readers.
Little Sis': If no one reviews, I won't have to write anything more.
Big Sis': Oh, come on, the second part is already outlined. It's going up no matter what, so stop being lazy. And who knows, a catfight might actually attract more people.
Little Sis': Maybe we should take bets on the winner, like in our fic! We could make money!
Big Sis': You fool! There is no money in fanfiction! Didn't you pay attention during the disclaimer?
Little Sis': That's right, folks, tune in next time to read our hilarious disclaimer! It's already been written!