Free Willy

Aboard the Straw Hats' ship there were two types of animals that crew members were never allowed to kill or eat the meat of: reindeer and whales.

One look at the crew's line-up and reindeer was perfectly self-explanatory. What the world saw as the Straw Hats' pet was a reindeer and most people don't eat their pets. As for the Straw Hats themselves, they joked that Chopper was emergency rations, but they would all rather pull a Zeff than eat their nakama. The ban on reindeer even extended to deer in general if they weren't starved for food.

So the animal protection that the world didn't expect of the Straw Hats was for whales. Honestly, it surprised most who got a look at the captain's voracious appetite. With his love for meat and the amount a whale could provide, to others it didn't make any sense at all that the captain would outright refuse to even consider catching a whale for food. But most of them didn't even know there was an island whale at the Twin Capes, much less about the 50-year-old promise that Laboon was waiting on.

Whale had been off the Straw Hat menu since they entered the Grand Line. Brook joining the crew only reinforced that exhibition and raised it to "never hurt a whale" (no one liked a moping Brook, the sad music just brought everyone down).

Which explained the current chaos.

The Straw Hat Pirates, who had seemed like such good guests to The Sea Tank restaurant, were going wild. The navigator had robbed The Sea Tank blind and was working some of the guests now. The shipwright was opening a hole in the jump net while the captain and swordsman saw to it that the security detail didn't interfere. The cook and archeologist had liberated their ship for escape. The sniper and doctor were guarding the musician, who was the worst of the lot. All the ingredient boats were miniature icebergs by his hand from the loud, angry chords spewing from his guitar as a ghostly green projection froze whatever its ethereal hands touched. It was the Soul King's most terrifying concert of chaos.

As for how it started…

The Sea Tank restaurant boasted three large, in-the-sea tanks that held all manner of marine life with floating glass platforms to hold their tables. "See the sea beneath you as you dine on freshly caught seafood," was their motto. It also just so happened that when the Straw Hat Pirates came to port on its island of residency, The Sea Tank had just added a small pod of blorca whales to tank two.

For all that he'd been a rock star, Brook was one of the more frugal members of the crew, so when he'd asked to go to the expensive restaurant to see the whales, Nami had agreed to it (if she had been interested in going herself, that was for her to know and no one to find out). Naturally, the rest of the crew found out and wanted to come too, so there was yelling that it was a "nice restaurant and you better be on your best behavior!" There were reasons, as in more than one, that they didn't go to fancy restaurants besides the prices (namely Luffy, though most male crew members were on that list in some way too).

That evening saw the Straw Hats showing up to The Sea Tank in formal evening wear (some had to be bullied into dressing nice) ready for a night of fine dining. It wasn't so bad by Straw Hat standards. Chopper, Luffy, and Usopp were loud as they pointed out the different fish they could see laying down on and peering through the glass platform (at least they weren't bouncing around), Franky was complimenting the architecture of the unique restaurant, Sanji was appreciating the set-up and the wafting scents from the kitchen, Zoro was leaned back in his chair and keeping an eye on the youngest crew members, Robin and Nami were chatting, and Brook had pulled out his neatly concealed guitar and started strumming a waltz-like tune that added nicely to the atmosphere of The Sea Tank.

It didn't take long for the blorca whale pod to decide that they liked the Straw Hat table the best, much to the delight of the crew as the whales swam around them. Of course, Luffy being Luffy, had decided that he would ride one, because why not? Except that the blorca whales obviously didn't know about Devil Fruits, so when Luffy's chosen stead, impulsively named Willy, dove with Luffy still aboard, the young captain nearly drowned. Luckily Willy was smart enough to resurface with Luffy still on his (or possibly her, the Straw Hats didn't know) back. There was scolding for being a reckless moron, but after Chopper helped make sure the whales understood, the kids of the crew enjoyed whale-back rides.

"Hey, Nami! Let's buy a whale!" Luffy declared.

"Luffy, we can't just buy a whale!" Nami yelled back. "There's no way they're selling something that attracts customers."

"But they are, Nami! See?" Luffy held up a stiff piece of paper, pointing to a line on it that read:

Blorca Whale … 1,000,000 beri

"That's the menu, Captain-san," Robin pointed out and the table went quiet, eyes darting between the captain and musician, waiting.

"FREE WILLY!" the captain ordered.

And thus chaos ensued.

Author's Note

Come on, it was begging to be done. Brook and by extension the Straw Hats are totally pro-whale and they would so fight someone over whaling/eating whale. Blorca whales are laziness on my part as blue+orca=blorca and I imagine them as nice cyan colored orca whales. If you want to imagine them differently, feel free to do so. As for the brief fight thing with Brook making shipbergs, I like to think that the awesome soul projection from chapter 848 not only looks awesome, but can swipe at things to hit them with the chill of the underworld. Otherwise Brook would be terribly vulnerable to anyone who can resist his Soul Scream. Anyways, there's probably going to be a Rumbar Pirate redux of this theme later because Laboon is Brook and that crew's whale baby.