Thanks for all the kind reviews! You guys are great!
This skips pretty far ahead.
"FRANKY, GO! GET THE KEYS TO ROBIN!"
He watches as Lucci struggles and squirms under Strawhat's restraining limbs, an animalistic snarl of irritation escaping him, and Franky once again bolts for the door. A crash and yelp of pain are his only warnings and he ducks on a hunch, thus avoiding a deadly kick from the CP9 agent. Franky winds his fist back, readying for a Strong Right when the young pirate once again makes himself know.
"DAMN IT, PIGEON BASTARD! I'm your opponent!" And Luffy Rockets once again into Lucci, slamming him off his feet and into some crates. "NOW GO! Save Robin!" He didn't dare take his eyes off the dusty pile of debris, obviously struggling to keep up with Lucci as it was. Never mind giving Franky enough time to get away.
He didn't need to be told twice.
"Give him hell, Strawhat!"
The last he heard was an affirmative shout.
The island is being blasted to hell and, still, they wait. The Strawhats' top fighters stand beside Franky and face the Judicial Island and wait. Wait for their captain. Wait for the nearing battleships to finally turn their cannons on them. Or engage them in hand-to-hand battle, as is most likely. They're still after Nico Robin, after all.
Franky muses that not 24 hours ago he would have gladly beaten any one of them to a bloody pulp if they had crossed paths with him, and he had. He glanced at the Longnose sniper, bandages barely concealed beneath his hasty disguise, and felt the workings of guilt reassert themselves. 24 hours ago they were all just another crew of pirates to profit off of. Now? Well…
"We're all worn out from our battles, we'd be hard-pressed to defend the escape ship! Where's Luffy?!" Longnose wonders in a worried voice.
Franky pointed out the smoking tower he had just been in. "Strawhat's over there, probably still fighting that pigeon guy, Lucci. They were crashing around on some battleships earlier and caused some serious damage. I'm impressed."
The Longnose took a step forward. "That's pretty close, should we go help?"
"No." Roronoa answered with finality. "That pigeon guy isn't normal, we shouldn't get between them. We'd only get in Luffy's way, anyway."
The chef had started yelling something at the swordsman when Franky intervened.
"Yeah! I stumbled on their fight earlier and Strawhat told me to go on and catch Nico Robin but Lucci kept trying to stop me, he had a tough time just keeping that bastard off of me long enough to let me escape. I'm sure if you charged in Lucci wouldn't twice about-" Suddenly he found himself wretched forward, facing a furious cook.
"YOU BASTARD! You just left Luffy to fight that monster?! You should have-!" His shouting was cut short as the swordsman and longnose pried him away. The sniper kept a hand wrapped around his arm, though, and Roronoa stood in front of Franky to glare at Sanji.
"Don't be ridiculous, Curlybrow, no one but Luffy can beat that guy and you know it! Quit taking your powerlessness out on Franky. He got Robin out, after all."
The cook cooled down at those last words but still grimaced over his cigarette. "Doesn't mean I have to like it…" He grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning away from the sniper's grip. Franky was a bit surprised at the cook's level of concern, considering his apparent disdain for the other males. Well, he is his captain…
"Zoro's right! Luffy will finish off that guy and we'll all sail away, you'll see!" Longnose declared in excitement; he radiated confidence.
The swordsman gave his crewmate a nod, then stoically resumed his watch over the bridge. "Right now our mission is to guard the escape ship from the marines and wait for Luffy."
Suddenly, a blast issued from the tower Strawhat was fighting in, causing an enormous crack to form along the height of the structure. Longnose flinched.
"Luffy..!"
Worry radiated from them all, despite the claims, but that was to be expected. The battleships were passing them by and they could hear orders being shouted.
"She…" The sniper murmured softly, "wouldn't die, right?" Huh?
"Idiot." Roronoa answered calmly.
"What?!"
Franky had little time to ponder the exchange before the first half of the bridge was bombed.
After they all shouted their alarm at the falling debris, they noticed the collapsed wall to the tower beyond the plume of smoke. And slowly, the two combatants came into view.
"LUFFY!" The sniper shouted. "OVER HERE!"
The smoke cleared enough and they could clearly see Strawhat look over to them. To say he looked like shit would be an understatement. He was covered in blood but it was barely noticeable over the pink tinge and steam his body seemed to be giving off. Franky heard a few sharp breaths from the others, but continued with the sniper's lead.
"WE ALL GOT TO THE BRIDGE SAFELY!"
'Sniper King' glanced at him for a second before shouting in his falsely deep voice. "DON'T WORRY ABOUT US, LUFFY-KUN!"
The cook chimed in too, "ROBIN'S SAFE!"
Strawhat straightens up and looks at them in amazement and relief, somehow just as worried for them as they were for him. "YOU…!"
"BEAT HIM!" They all shout together. "AND WE'LL LEAVE THIS PLACE ALIVE!"
Accepting their words, smiles and nods, he turns back to his opponent with renewed vigor.
They turn away after that, the battleships have gotten close enough that they can hear the orders onboard clearly as they prepare their siege, and prepare for a fight of their own.
The flames are finally starting to lower as the Strawhat's ship begins to sink into the ocean's inky depths when it happens.
Franky doesn't even notice at first. He's blowing his nose on his shirt (Not crying, damn it! I'm just allergic to beautiful scenes!) when Zoro and Sanji jump into the water without warning.
"Wha- What are you two doing?!" But he notices all the other Strawhats are leaning forward towards their captain's small vessel ahead of them. Nami looks like she had to restrain the little raccoon-dog from jumping in after his crewmates. Franky looks up at Strawhat, but-
He's not there.
Franky feels a jolt of fear and, oddly, protectiveness before he remembers that he had not heard a splash before the ones the two warriors made.
"Luffy collapsed." Robin states softly, eyes locked on her captain's missing form and standing closer to the edge of their boat than is probably wise. Her eyes are still watery from Merry's goodbye and she quickly swipes away the tears to keep a better watch.
"Oh, well he looked pretty injured. He couldn't even walk on his own earlier, I'm just surprised he lasted this long." He notices Robin giving him a Look, almost irritated. "What?"
Before she could say anything however, Zoro and Sanji reach Strawhat. Everyone waits with bated breath as the two check the boy.
Sanji's the one to call over while Zoro seems to be moving his captain into a more comfortable position, "Looks like she just passed out! We'll pull her over now!"
The two jump back into the water and start hauling the boat over to theirs as Franky tries to clean out his ears, Weird, I must have charcoal in my ears. Could have sworn he said 'she'. But he quickly helps out when Usopp picks up the oars of their boat to try and meet his crewmates partway.
"Careful! Keep her as stable as you can. Over here, now!" Chopper instructs them to move him out of the cramped boat; they can hear Iceburg ordering the shipwrights to make a sling to lift Strawhat up onto the ship afterwards.
Once set down, the men step to the back of the boat while Chopper, Robin, and Nami lean in over their captain. The little doctor gives the girls orders while he rummages into his bag and pulls out a stethoscope and bandages; Robin starts unbuttoning Luffy's vest to reveal some pretty impressive bruising and dark patches of clotted blood.
Franky had just released a sympathetic hiss of breath at the discolorations, not seeing Nami glancing up at the sound, when he noticed the black band of cloth across his battered chest which seemed to have resisted the worst of Strawhat's fight.
Huh, he thinks, that kind of looks like-
He just has time to register a flash of orange before he's pitched over the side of the boat for a soak.
When he resurfaces, coughing and spluttering over the unexpected turn of events, it's to the navigator and cook screaming at him, but it's incomprehensible with all the water around his ears. Roronoa waves him over when the navigator turns away and offers him a hand at the far end of the boat, smirking as he pulls him up.
"Careful, Nami's kind of taken it upon herself to become Luffy's 'modesty'." The swordsman offers over his grin.
"And Sanji's… well, he's just Sanji." Usopp agrees.
Franky looks between them and something tells him he's about to learn something that's going to give him even more grief than what he's faced so far. "What do you mean? Why'd she shove me off in the water?!" He seems to have gotten over the shock and gone straight to indignant.
Usopp and Zoro give each other a glance, he can see Sanji fixing him with a glare from across the boat, and the sniper shrugs at the swordsman.
"He's our friend now, I don't see any harm." Usopp states.
Zoro must agree because he turns to Franky with a guarded expression and says. "Luffy's a woman."
Franky has about two seconds to absorb that tidbit of information before Kokoro bursts out into her trademark cackling.
"My goodness! Things are going to be quite exciting with our Pirate King here! I can't wait!"
He still hasn't moved past his shock but hears himself asking, "Don't you mean 'queen'?"
"Luffy's pretty insistent on being King, I wouldn't push her on it." Usopp states in a somewhat amused tone.
Zoro snorts, "That's an understatement."
Iceburg is laughing. Laughing at him. Like he's the idiot who didn't notice.
Well, he didn't, but neither did Iceburg!
"Shut up, Ice-for-brains! I didn't see you calling Strawhat a girl."
Iceburg struggles to take a breath over his chuckles, it was really Franky's apparent incredulity over the information and his rendition of what had made the navigator throw him overboard that had made him start laughing. "Yes, well, female pirate captains aren't very common, I'll give you that." He added another few lines of notes beside his blueprints while continuing to chuckle. "But I'm not sure you should be so surprised, just by her sex."
Franky held up a hand. "Hey, don't get me wrong! I've met plenty of strong women! Kiwi and Mozu could take down just about any bounty we've faced that didn't have a devil fruit. But this? Strawhat took down the strongest member of the government's elite intelligence group! And walked away from it!" He crossed his arms and frowned down at the floor. "I keep thinking it must be a joke if Roronoa didn't keep glaring at me whenever I tried to bring it up…"
"He seems a bit touchy on the subject, maybe you should leave it alone." Iceburg agreed absently as he continued to fill in the blueprints; he leans back after a couple minutes and removes his glasses to rub at his eyes. "The thing is Franky, what Strawhat did was considered impossible."
"Right?!"
"No, I mean… Man or woman. This feat, burning Enies Lobby to the ground and wiping out CP9, should not have been possible. Just as there are men physically stronger than others, logically there will be women who are just the same. …You could probably count Kalifa among those." He adds reluctantly for emphasis, Franky can tell that their betrayal still hurts. "So. Strawhat's feats of strength are astounding and neigh unbelievable, to be sure, but not for the reasons you seem to be hung up on." He finally levels Franky with a sympathetic smile, though. "It'll probably take awhile to wrap your head around it, though."
Franky scowls at his ease, somewhat petulantly. "What about you? How can you just accept it so easily?"
Iceburg puts his glasses back on and leans over his papers. "Oh, I haven't, really. But I'm not the one that's going to be stuck with them for much longer." He murmurs almost to himself.
Franky grunts absently, pondering his brother's words, and takes a gulp of his cola. "So, what are you working on over there?"
Maybe it's his flair for drama Franky eventually concedes, pulling out the stack of notes he's made out of the Strawhats' requests, as he sits down to add the finishing touches to his Dream Ship's blueprints. After the first couple days, the novelty seemed to have worn off and he thought he was taking the abrupt change pretty well. Of course, learning that Luffy was The Fist's granddaughter and Dragon's daughter might have made her superhuman strength a bit easier to swallow. Or eclipsed it, more like.
Despite that, Franky has made his decision. And by the time he goes to work on carrying out his promise to the little band of pirates he's come to consider part of his family, he knows what Luffy needs.
She needs a ship worthy of a King.
This was kind of hard to write.
At first I was pretty much just narrating the events of Enies Lobby through Franky's perspective before I scrapped it and started over. I'm really glad I did, that would have been boring. Franky's names for the crew were kind of annoying too, he keeps using nicknames and it makes it hard to vary the way he refers to them. He starts referring to them by name in his head after they escape.
I really didn't want to have him coming off misogynistic (like, 'what?! How could a girl do all this?!'), but he's just witnessed Luffy beat Lucci. Even in canon he was pretty incredulous.
And, yes, Luffy wears a sports bra. I like to think Nami insisted on it once she saw how often Luffy used her Gum Gum Balloon and she figured, 'that's just an accident waiting to happen.' That would be pretty fun to write!
I ended up using the English terms from the dub in some cases.
I think I'll have at least one more chapter up by the Sunday after this one, preferably two, because I'm on Spring Break right now.
