SkyGem: You, my readers, are absolutely too lovely for words. I hope you enjoy this chapter, yes? No new characters joining in this chapter; instead, we get to explore the new dynamics of the crew a bit. It was interesting, to say the least.


The morning after Izo's welcome party is an unusually quiet one on the Thousand Sunny. The crew had partied late into the night, drinking and getting to know more about the Sunny's newest passenger, and when it had come time to hit the hay, Luffy had kicked up such a fuss, they'd ended up camping out on the deck. That had been at approximately two in the morning.

So when Izo awakens to see the first rays of sun creeping over the horizon, he isn't surprised in the least to find most of his new crewmates still sprawled out around him in their nest of blankets. The two girls are sleeping to Izo's left, and Luffy is sprawled out on his right, arms and legs flung all over the place, head jutting into Izo's side.

Rolling his eyes in fond exasperation, Izo extracts himself from the pile and looks around. Marco's shock of dishevelled blond hair isn't anywhere in the sleeping pile ,though Izo doesn't have to search long before finding him. Even back on the Moby Dick, Marco had always taken it upon himself to keep watch on nights the crew had a party, lest they be taken by a surprise attack, and sure enough, there he is, sitting on the roof of the crow's nest in his phoenix form.

Izo gives him a wave before heading into the galley, not willing to admit aloud how much that familiar sight comforts him.

The blond chef whose name Izo cannot, for the life of him, remember is also awake and is already at the stove, preparing breakfast.

"You're up early," he says, giving Izo a peculiar look as he takes a seat at the dining table.

Izo ignores it – he hasn't washed off the previous day's makeup yet or styled his hair, so he knows he must be quite the sight.

"Force of habit," he says as has pulls his messy hair into a neat ponytail – it's not his usual style, but it will do until he has a chance to fix it. "Division commanders always had to be up at dawn to go over the plan for the day and distribute the chores and such."

The chef nods in understanding. "So that's why Marco's always the first one up," he says, turning back to the food.

"Nah, Marco's different. He's always had strange sleeping habits," Izo informs him, looking around at the galley. It's smaller than the one on the Moby Dick (the whole ship is), but it's comfortable, more intimate.

The chef chuckles. "I see. So tell me about your food preferences," he says, moving onto a new topic. "Any allergies or other dietary restrictions? What about likes and dislikes."

Izo feels a smile tug at his lips. The Whitebeard pirates had been too large a crew to conceivably cater to everyone's tastes all the time, so it isn't often Izo has a meal made especially for him.

"No allergies," he informs, "Though I do try not to eat too much meat."

This garners a chuckle from the chef. "Complete opposite of our captain, then. It's nearly impossible to get the little shithead to eat anything but meat. Got any requests for breakfast?"

They continue like that for a while, the conversation between them easy. The chef (whose name is Sanji, Izo soon learns) is a little rough around the edges, but friendly enough, though sometimes he does seem a bit confused on how to treat Izo.

By the time the sun finishes its ascent into the sky, the dining table is laden with a veritable assortment of foods, and the other crewmembers start drifting in one by one, no doubt drawn by the scent of food.

The meal is a rowdy one, and over the course of it and the rest of the day, Izo learns a lot about his new family.

He learns that food is to be guarded from Luffy's impossibly long reach.

He learns that the party atmosphere from last night never completely goes away.

He learns that Luffy is a completely different species of captain from Whitebeard – most of the technical aspects of running a ship are handled by the more responsible navigator, though he never skips out on his chores. And while Luffy has last say in everything, he doesn't exercise that right often, preferring to take his crew's opinion into account whenever he can.

All in all, it's very different from being on the Moby Dick, but not in a bad way.

The Thousand Sunny has her own charm.


It's a miserable rainy day, just over a week after Izo joined the crew, when Nami calls a group meeting to bring up a topic that most of the more intelligent members of the crew have been wondering about for a while now.

Luffy is not one of those people.

So when they're all settled around the dining table in the galley, with a heap of snacks in front of the young captain to keep him from being too obnoxious, he looks at his navigator with wide, curious eyes, and asks, "What's up?"

"There are some very important issues we need to sort out," she says, without preamble. "And I'd prefer we do it sooner rather than later."

"Issues?" asks Luffy, leaning back and folding his legs up so that he can put his feet on the edge of his chair, and rest his milkshake cup on his knees. "What issues? Are we out of meat?"

Nami rolls her eyes, opening her mouth to berate him, but Usopp cuts in instead.

"We're not out of meat, Luffy. But in case you hadn't noticed, the men's quarters are getting a bit crowded," he says.

"Are they?" asks Luffy, tilting his head to the side in confusion. "I didn't notice any differences though?"

"They are!" insists Usopp. "We should be able to fit at least one more double bunk in there for Izo and whoever comes next, but if plan on picking up more former Whitebeard pirates after this, we're going to have a problem."

"But they're all so cool!" whines Luffy. "I want the diamond guy to join us! And they have this swordsman with a super cool moustache, and he wears a top hat, just like Sabo!"

"Luffy, no one's saying you can't-" begins Usopp, trying to soothe him, but he keeps whining.

"And there's this guy named Haruta, and Macro says-"

"It's Marco," the blond corrects tiredly. "And will you just listen to us? No one's saying you can't recruit more crewmembers!"

"Oh," says Luffy, immediately shutting up. "Good."

"How many more do you plan on recruiting though, shitty captain?" asks Sanji from where he's standing near a porthole, smoking.

Luffy looks straight at him, expression dead serious.

"All of them."

Sanji nearly swallows his cigarette in shock.

"That's over a thousand people, you idiot!" he yells, coughing.

"Doooon't care!" replies Luffy, not listening to him. "If they're all as cool as Izo and Meerkat, I want them!"

"THAT DOESN'T EVEN SOUND LIKE MY NAME ANY MORE!" roars Marco.

Luffy ignores him.

"The more the merrier, right?" he says.

"That's not how you felt with the Grand Fleet," says Zoro with a smirk, and Luffy's ensuing disgusted expression causes a round of snickers among the rest of their nakama.

"What's the Grand Fleet?" asks Jinbe, looking confused, and Izo is relieved to see that he's not the only one who has no idea what's going on.

"The Straw Hat Grand Fleet," Brook informs them in a cheerful voice. "A group of seven pirate crews that have declared themselves subordinates of Luffy."

"When did that happen?" asks Jinbe, brows furrowed. "I'm sure I was only separated from you all for a few months."

"After Dressrosa," says Luffy, still looking as if he's about to puke. "They said they wanted to pledge their loyalty to me or something. What the hell would I do with 5600 subordinates anyways?"

Izo nearly chokes when he hears this, thinking he must have heard wrong.

"How many?" demands Marco, sounding just as disbelieving as Izo feels.

"See? That's exactly how I reacted!" yells Nami. "I leave these knuckleheads alone for just a few days, and suddenly, we're the leaders of a fleet! As if the marines don't hate us enough already!"

"It's not like I wanted it to happen!" yells Luffy, throwing his arms in the air. "They're all really cool guys, especially Cabbage and chicken head, but they're way too uptight! And they wanted a parent-child relationship or something. I don't want servants! I want Nakama! That's the difference between the Grand Fleet, and the Whitebeard pirates!"

"Okay, that's super, really. But shouldn't we get back to the topic at hand?" interrupts Franky, cutting off the argument before it can start again. "At this point, it's basically guaranteed we'll need another ship, and I'd really like some numbers so I can get to the drawing board already."

"What?" demands Luffy, turning to look at him. "But I want us all to be on the same ship!" he whines, stomping his feet like a child having a tantrum.

"Captain-san, the only way we'd be able to do that would be to replace Sunny," says Robin, her voice gentle.

Luffy's response is immediate.

"When hell freezes over."

"Then we need to get a new ship!" Franky huffs, rolling his eyes.

Nami pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes closed as she lets out a sigh.

"Alright," she says. "How many Whitebeard pirates are there?" she asks, taking charge.

"Not counting those who died as a result of the war?" asks Marco with a wince, remembering all the brothers he'll never see again. At least he hadn't lost any sisters that day – their pops hadn't allowed any of his daughters to fight in the war, citing the fact that most of them (even the fighters) were doctors or nurses, of which there were already few enough in the pirating world. There would have been far more casualties on their side if they had lost even one of the girls in the fighting. "Approximately 1500."

"Some of the older members have returned to their homes in the Blues, though," says Izo. "To settle down and help raise their children and such. I still keep in touch with some; they seem to be doing well. Minus them, there should be about 1100 former Whitebeard pirates still on the Grand Line, give or take a hundred."

"And then there are two or three divisions that have formed their own crews," adds Marco. "They probably wouldn't want to join the crew, but I guess they'd be open to joining the Grand Fleet."

"So all in all…about 800-900 former Whitebeard pirates who might potentially join the Strawhats," concludes Izo.

Luffy has stars in his eyes at the thought of so many new nakama, so excited he's practically vibrating in his seat.

"Alright," says Franky, looking thoughtful. "They'll probably join up gradually, so once we have enough people to man it, we'll have a battleship built to accommodate 500 people. And once that's at capacity, we can build the second one. Good?"

"Aye!" everyone else agrees.

"A ship that size would be too much for me to build on my own though," Franky warns his captain. "So we'll have to go back to Water 7 for it."

Nami looks at her captain uneasily at this; she knows how much Luffy will dislike the idea of backtracking, especially since they've only just entered the new world.

"That's alright!" he chirps. "One Piece isn't going anywhere, and we need to make sure all our nakama are comfortable! As long as we take a different route to get there this time, we can still have an adventure."

"We should probably get going now, then," Izo says. "I heard a while ago that the second division has reformed the Spade pirates, with Ace's former first mate as the captain. And since I'm sure at least someone must have blabbed to the press by now about us joining the Strawhats, they should be on their way here right now."


SkyGem: And that's all folks! So in this chapter we got to see a tiny bit about the new Strawhats interacting with the old ones, and of course some very important discussion about the logistical issues in regards to the anticipated influx of new nakama. Liked it? Didn't like it? Anything I could have done better? Leave a review below and let me know what you thought and I'll see you all again next chapter!