Welcome back to Legend of the Galctic Pirates, ladies! And gents too, I guess. I'm back from my travels to write more propaganda- I mean, stories.
On a side note, did you know that my nation has the most Olympic medals per capita? Here's to hoping a small island nation of a few thousand doesn't get one!
There is a mention of a copyrighted work in this chapter: 'Pirates of Space' by Messenger. Go with it.
Also, in this chapter you'll see the first non-cannon crewmember.
Anyway, let's go! Adventures lie ahead!
"We owe you our freedom, kids!"
As soon as Nami signed up, the trio was approached by Boodle, the old planetary governor. His youngsters were busy tying up the wounded beaten pirates, singing the cheerful song of victory. The relief and the pleasure of victory were also visible on the governor's face. His clothes were torn and slightly bloody, his wig was missing from his bald head, but he didn't seem to care as he thanked the group of now three pirates.
Luffy lowered the bottle of rum he was drinking from his lips, smiling widely. "You saved yerself, gov'nor," he stated with a slight accent. "Yer lads followed you into battle for yer freedom and you won. The end."
Boodle smiled and shook his head. "No, kid. Without seeing your brave face-off with Buggy and his crew, the youngsters... no, I wouldn't have had half the courage to fight. And the Clown could have destroyed the whole town."
"I would have gone and done it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!" was heard from the bag the pirate captain was trapped in. It was lying forgotten at Luffy's legs, below the table with bottles of rum on it.
Luffy delivered a kick to it, causing Buggy to yelp. "I don't remember asking you a god-damned thing!" he said, with a slight tone of anger in his voice. The man had ripped his hat after all. "And it's 'I would have gotten away with it too', etc."
The governor chuckled at the sight. 'Ah, youth...' he thought. "May I know your name, young man?" he asked Luffy, deducing he was the leader.
"Me, I'm captain Monkey D. Luffy," the rubber man answered with a grin, his right thumb stretched towards his chest proudly. "Remember that well, for I shall be the Pirate King!" he added.
'Monkey D. Luffy, huh?' the governor thought to himself. 'This kid will indeed do great things. He has both the strength and resolve to change the course of history. Not unlike Gol D. Roger...'
"We are eternally grateful to you, captain Luffy," Boodle finally said. "As a pirate, you probably won't be able to collect the prize on Buggy's head. And your courage can't be left unrewarded."
That's when Nami stepped in. "Yeah, I agree. A payment for our work would-..."
"No need," Luffy stated, cutting her off. "You need to rebuild Orangetown first."
Nami turned towards the young captain with a dissatisfied look. "But-..."
"Our target was the pirates' loot," cut her off again, giving her a stern look. "We fought them because they were in the way of it. We weren't fighting for the Orangeans, so we shouldn't accept their reward. Especially when they need the money to rebuild their town."
Again, Nami was proven wrong in her belief that all pirates cared about was money and power. Instead, she recieved a lecture in morality from one. Instead, she was the one that let her greed get the best of her, making her, in reality, as bad as a pirate. So, she lowered her head in shame, saying a silent "Yeah," in agreement.
Luffy smiled at her. "Don't worry. Next time I'll find the people in need first, strike a deal with them and then solve their problem."
The governor spoke again: "There must be something we can do to repay you?"
Luffy thought for a few moments. "Well... I do need a new ship... and supplies to last us until the next port..." His gaze trailed off, moving around the post-battle square before landing on... "That!"
Boodle followed his gaze towards the centre of the square. "The tent?"
"No, the thingy in front of it!"
The Buggy Cannon. The destructive cannon stood forgotten in front of the circus tent where it had been left after Nami refused to fire it. Its destructive power couldn't be questioned: the long line of destroyed buildings running all the way to the edge of the settlement was a fine proof of it.
"You can take that blasted cannon!" Boodle stated. "I don't want it on my planet!"
Luffy burst out in laughter. "Hahah! Blasted! Get it!?" Under the table, Buggy joined his laughter.
They were interrupted by a strained groan. Next to Luffy, Zoro was pouring some more alcohol onto his wound. He then proceeded to drink the rest.
"Aye, Zoro here'll need some doctoring up," Luffy added.
"I'm fine, capitán!" the swordsman interjected. "Just give the wound some time and- YARGH! MIERDA!"
The green-haired shot a strained glare at his captain who had just pressed his right index finger to his wound. Even to a trained warrior like him, the pain was unbearable.
"I need you in perfect condition, Zoro," Luffy stated. "Heal up. Captain's orders."
The governor nodded. "I'll get doc Kharn to fix your friend up. And I'm sure we can find some food and other essencials we can spare." He paused for a few moments. "As for the ship, well... The Buggy Pirates docked two in the port. The Big Top, his sloop-class flagship, and a small pinnace, the Little Bottom. The former is, while in perfect sailing condition, too big and complex for a crew of three to man, but the latter is, while being small enough, damaged beyond repair and will probably break with a few-..."
"Shh!" Luffy cut him off. He seemed to be straining to hear something, using his hands to stretch his ear's width. "You hear that?"
The governor quieted down, trying to hear the sound the young captain was talking about. Over the mumbling of his Planet's youth, he could hear strained howling.
"It's coming from over there, come on!"
Luffy started running towards the line of ruined buildings, his two comrades and Boodle following. He jumped over destroyed walls, some of which were still radiating heat with a few fires burning the wooden furniture. The howling was getting louder and louder, until the four finally reached its source.
"By Thor!" Boodle exclaimed as he took in the sight before him.
Zoro shook his head. "That's just... awful."
"Poor thing!" Nami almost cried, putting her hands over her mouth.
The captain had no comment to add to what the others had said.
At the entrance of a generic dwelling construction thet seemed to have used to have a shop on the ground floor, a very young dog, almost a pup, was howling at the sight of an old bitch, probably its mother. She was smoldering, half her body having been exposed to the shot from the Buggy Cannon.
They appeared to belong to the Persceptive Fighthound breed, a breed renowned for its intelligence, loyalty and combat strength. The PF were one of the most popular breeds in the frontier sectors, due to their sense for their master's alliances and versatility. They looked somewhat like a terrier with a slightly longer and wider jaw. They had short white hair and grew to a height of a metre and length of one and a half.
"Yowl!" the little dog cried.
"I thought everyone, even the animals evacuated?" Luffy asked, having lost his humorous attitude at the tragic sight.
"Almost everyone," Danblum stated with sorrow in his voice. "That's Leufira, the pup's Chouchou. Their master, Hocker, got ill about a year ago. Boorbounic plague, you remember? Well, we, as a small colony didn't exactly have access to better doctors and with the pandemic almost over, Orangeworld was simply quarantined. So, Hocker left his house to stay at the clinic, said that he didn't want to infect us as well. As he left, he instructed his dogs to watch the house while he's gone... He never returned. And since then, Leufira has... had guarded the house, awaiting her master's return. Even when Buggy and his crew came to town-..."
"No more! Please, no more!" Luffy moaned, touched by the governor's words. "Such a beautiful story! Such loyalty!"
He slowly approached the two dogs, getting on his knees in front of them. Chouchou stopped moaning to pay attention to the newcomer and prepared to fight should he pose a threat. Luffy gazed into his eyes with sympathy, before reaching out to him slowly. Chouchou let out a few growls at the young man, but quieted down as the hand approached him, seeing no ill intent in him. Luffy started to comfortingly stroke his chin, muttering words of condolence.
'Man, he's good,' Zoro thought. 'That's love at first sight right there.'
'What is he now, a dog whisperer?' Nami wondered.
"Those evil bastards," Luffy said to the dog. "They left you motherless. Packless..." He continued to comfort Chouchou.
"Chouchou is very young, only a year and a half," Boodle stated. "He has some basic skills but, as a dog, he'll need a family to call his own."
Luffy thought for a few moments before standing up and turning to his two crewmates. "Can we keep him?"
It was a few hours later that the crew was, once again, traveling through space, speeding at a superluminal speed with their warp bubble towards the next system. The Little Bottom was a wreck, more a flying tub than a starship, with its lower deck sealed off due to a crack in its hull. With each forceful change in velocity, the ship shook violently and crackling could be heard through the walls. But, as Luffy had reasoned, it would have to do until they found a better ship.
Said captain was currently sitting cross-legged in the command seat on the ship's bridge, Chouchou napping on his lap. He was whistling an old folk tune, 'Pirates of Space'. Behind him, Zoro was sleeping as well, lying against the back wall of the bridge.
Nami, from her seat at the pilot's controls, observed the young captain as she continued to mend his straw hat. It seemed to have high sentimental value to him, being some sort of a symbol of honour and a promise he had made. He even named his own independent country, as he called the small crew of now three, after it.
Her thoughts went back to the battle on Orangeworld. Luffy was, unlike most people in that day and age, a man of honour. His moral compass differed from the one the Terran Government was propagating. He was an anarchist and desired freedom above all else. And, unlike the stereotypical pirate, he didn't seem to be a looter or rapist, pillaging worlds as he pleased.
"There, done," she stated as she finished fixing his hat. She threw it over to him and he caught it gracefully between his right thumb and index finger.
Putting the hat on theatrically, Luffy grinned at her, his signature expression once again forming on his face. "Thanks."
"Say, Luffy?" Nami said.
"Aye?"
"That scar under your eye. How did you get it?"
Luffy trailed said scar with his finger. "This?" At Nami's nod, he continued: "It's not exactly an exciting story."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," the navigator assured.
"No, really. It's silly," the captain said in annoyance.
The thief's eyes sparkled in curiosity. "Now I really want to hear it."
"No, you really don't."
"Tell me how you got the scar!" Nami raised her voice, causing Chouchou and Zoro to stir in their sleep.
"Ach aye!" Luffy raised his hands defensively. "Easy! You're the navigator, not the quartermaster."
The captain cleared his throat dramatically. Then he spoke: "Gather 'round and listen as I tell you now this tale! T'was about a Terran decade ago that a pirate ship landed in the settlement of Foosha on Planet Goa. The Red Hair Pirates. They decided to use it as a base of operations, going on several adventures and robberies from there. The locals, due to the criminals' boost to economy, let them stay.
Their tales of their exploits soon sparked the interests of a young boy. He often came to the local bar where the Red Hairs woud speak of their adventures. But whenever he'd ask to join them, he got the same answer: 'You're not made of the right matter for it, kid'. Eventually, he'd had enough. He took a combat knife and, in front of the entire bar, cut himself under his eye, so that the pirates would see how tough he truly was.
The end."
As Luffy finished his tale, Nami stared at him for a few moments. Gradually, she began to chuckle, before breaking out in hearty laughter. 'He cut himself to prove he was fit to be a pirate?' she thought.
"Told you it was a silly tale," Luffy said, still smiling even though the girl was laughing at his younger self's stupidity.
A siren suddenly sounded, alerting the crew of the iminent exit from warp. Chouchou, startled by the sound, jumped from Luffy's lap and ran behind his seat. Zoro groaned and slowly got up, mumbling Hispanic profanities.
All of them in their places, they let the ship decelerate, before popping the warp bubble. They enetered a system of a g-class star.
"Alright, this'll be the Gecko system," Nami stated, rising from her seat at the rudder and going over to the navcomputer. She turned the device comprised of a keyboard and a square metre big hologram platform on. "Let's see now..." She brought up the local cluster's map but was bombarded with error messages, informing her that the information was corrupt, the operating system was outdated and that an error had occured while creating an error report. "Fucking Macrohard OS 75! Why can't computers have a Freax!?"
"At least it's not a Pear OS," Luffy tried to calm her down. "You know that feeling when the computer thinks it knows better than you what you want?"
"Even synths don't do that," Zoro agreed.
Meanwhile, Nami had managed to manually locate the planets in the system using the ship's sensors. She flew them in the direction of the populated worlds.
A couple of hours of subluminal travel later they reached their destination. A system of twin planets orbiting the star in the fabled 'Goldylocks Zone'. Both were habitable, but one seemed to be more populated than the other.
"Here we are," Nami stated. "Syrup Alpha and Syrup Beta."
Luffy thought for a few moments. "Land on Beta," he decided.
"But Luffy!" Zoro interjected. "If we want a new ship, Alpha is the place to go to!"
"With a pirate ship?" the straw-hatted boy said. "A heavily populated world like that would fire at us first and ask questions later. Beta, however... Even if they have ground-to-orbit defences they'd realise a pirate wouldn't just come to raid them with the real prize just 400 000 kilometres away."
He turned to Nami. "Set us down, nice and easy. We'll try and hitch a ride to Alpha on an interplanetary transport."
Seeing logic in the captain's reasoning, the navigator entered the scarcely populated world's orbit and descended into its atmosphere. The humid world with a mostly tropical climate had only one settlement in the middle of one of its forests, surrounded by fields of green plants the pirates couldn't recognise from their altitude. Whatever they were, it seemed to be the only thing they grew. Unless it was food, the planet had to rely on its neighbour for the basic resource.
The crew, though, had no time to wonder about the economic purpose of the small colony. They had reached their destination, a small landing platform a few minutes' walk away from the settlement. It was empty of all spacefaring vessels, as well as personel. It didn't have a command tower and consisted simply of a platform big enough to support a few medium-sized ships.
As the Little Bottom landed, the crew heard a loud crack, before being wildly shook as the ship's landing gears broke. The ship's computers informed them that the thrusters were damaged and the gravity manipulation field was offline.
"Well fuck!" Nami swore.
"Don't worry about it," Luffy said. "We all make mistakes. Besides, we don't need this ship anymore.
"Unless you noticed, idiot," the girl screamed in pure rage, "there are no ships to take us to Syrup Alpha! We're stuck here!"
"Calm down," Zoro interjected. "We're here now. We'll find a cantina, have a drink and see what next."
"I agree with Zoro," Luffy stated. "Let's have a drink."
"Woof!" Chouchou agreed.
Nami facepalmed. "What kind of crew did I join?" she muttered just loud enough for them to hear.
"One that doesn't turn a fly into an elephant," the captain said.
"Por favor ?"
"Means we don't make a fuss about trivial things," he explained. "Goan phrase."
The crew made their way out of the ship. Then, their first item of business was to assess the damage. Little Bottom had, as they concluded, met the end of its interstellar career. The hull was just a nudge away from falling apart, the thrusters seemed to be leaking some strange substance that shouldn't even be there... Hopefully the ship wouldn't explode or something stereotypical like that.
Next, the three humans and one dog decided to visit the village. However, just as they were about to reach the main road leading to the settlement, they were stopped by a voice from the bushes.
"Don't come any closer, waykr!" It was deep and powerful. The man spoke in a thick Britannic accent.
Back in the 22nd century, after the discovery of warp, a new age begane for the myriad of the nations of Terra: the New Colonial Era. The leading nations of the United Nations, like the Britannic Empire, the Russian Federation, the American Unified States or the Viszegrad Alliance, sent colony ships outbound, to search for new worlds to settle. It was an age of exploration and expansion. Even to this day, the nations that settled the stars with their empires are acknowledged, with the language groups of the day being named after the first colony ships they sent from Terra, like Britannia, Germannia, Hispannia, Brasillia, Honshu, Arabia or California.
But back to the story.
The crew noticed a lanky mulatto of about 16 or 17 standing in the bushes by the road, aiming a strange-looking rifle with a scope at them. Medium-length woolly black hair peeked from under the olive-green bandana on his head. He wore goggles over his eyes. He had brown overalls with multiple pockets, as well as a small satchel over his shoulder. But the most notable feature had to be his nose. Thin and fairly long horisontally, causing the brown-skinned boy to look like Pinocchio.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Zoro asked.
The strange youth pointed a thumb at himself. "I'm the fearless Usopp, master of tricks, defender of this planet and the pirate with a crew of six gorillion at his disposal. I am known as 'Captain' Usopp!"
To emphasise his point, he pointed at the forest behind him where hundreds of silhuettes seemed to rise from hiding places.
"Six gorillion?!" Luffy responded, feigning shock. "Oh woe!"
"Is that even a number?" Zoro wondered.
"Arf," Chouchou voiced, probably trying to say 'no'.
Nami sighed in frustration at their silliness. "Oh please! I'd be surprised if there are over six hundred people living on this planet."
Usopp gasped in shock, but managed to recompose himself. "Well, I might have exagerated my manpower. But it's still high!"
Just then, the silhuettes in the woods started to crackle, dissppearing and reappearing over and over again.
"Wait a minute!" the straw-hatted teen exclaimed. "Those aren't warriors. Those are holograms!"
"Daem 't, ey nooz!" a childish voice shouted behind the bushes. A moment later, a trio of preteen boys could be seen running towards the settlement.
"Traitors!" the dark-skinned teen shouted behind them. He then turned his attention to the newcommers, aiming his rifle at them. His voice shook as he spoke, his nervousness obvious now. "Right! I might be alone! But that's why I have this railgun. I can hit a fly from a kilometre away with it!"
Chouchou growled at his threat, preparing to strike.
Luffy's face got serious at the boy's threat. He spoke challengingly: "Nice gun you have there. But can you use it?"
"Huh?"
"That is a killing tool," he continued. "When pointing it at someone, you're preparing to take his life, especially if you're a sniper."
Usopp's hands started to shake. This man, even with a gun aimed at him, had complete confidence in himself while he, the gunman, was nervous, scared for his life, not the other way around. "W-what are you going at?"
"Can you kill?" Luffy said, giving him a dark glare. "Because I can."
"Tremble in fear!" Zoro said. "The man before you is a real pirate. Heart as black as the emptiness of space, hands red with blood!"
'Daem! I can't do it!' the gunman thought. 'I'm too weak! I don't have what it takes to be a true pirate.' With that he lowered his gun. "I give," he said.
To his surprise, the straw-hatted captain laughed loudly. "Hahahah! I was kinda worried that you'd shoot there!" he exclaimed.
"WHAT!" Nami yelled.
"Roll with it," Zoro advised her.
"Never thought this speech would come in handy," the captain said. "I heard it from Red Haired Shanks, you know?"
Usopp widened his eyes. He knew that name well, from the letters his mother had been recieving. "You've met Shanks?!"
Luffy nodded. "Some ten years ago, on Goa. You're Yasopp's kid, right? You look just like him. Except for the nose. And skin."
The half-black lad, with his fears dispelled, approached the group, opening his arms in the universal welcoming gesture. "Come! I'll buy you lunch and you can tell me all about it!"
