I had been exploring Loguetown and the stores inside for some time when I found something that I immediately knew I had to have.
It was a white paisley bandana. Nothing special to anybody else, but it brought back memories to me.
In my previous life, my gang and I all repped white and black. We called them our flags, but I had lost mine one day when my best friend was stabbed in the tricep and I offered it to cut off circulation and it had got covered in blood. The hospital threw it away, but personally I would've like to keep it.
If I were to have another one, it would serve to symbolize the people I left behind. A part of me still regretted that, but I was working through it. I was never one to hold regrets, but leaving the only people I could ever trust put a hole in my heart that might never heal. A new flag might help me there.
As I was staring at the bandana, the store clerk noticed me and asked if I was interested in anything I saw. Once, I asked him how much the bandana would be, he gave an outrageous price that I most definitely could not afford. Outrageous being around 500 beli, which might seem cheap to anyone else, but I have 0 beli, so the price seemed unfair.
Thankfully, I wasn't one to abide by the law so I diverted his attention by pointing at something in the back of the store and practically jumping out the door.
Just my luck, he didn't even try to chase after me. Not that he could've kept up, but it would've attracted unnecessary attention.
As I walked away from the area, I saw a group of marines running in the direction of the shop I just stole from. Apparently, there was a marine base in Loguetown.
I then made my way to the marketplace, where I ran into Jenni. At that point, I had already tied the flag around my bicep about an inch above my elbow, like I always used to wear it. I felt better already.
"Yo, Jenni! You got any bacon?"
"Actually, I do," she answered, tossing me a bag of precooked bacon strips.
I thanked her for them, and went on my way. I wandered around for a little, searching for some kind of pet store.
It took me some time, but I eventually found a store where I could get myself the dog that I'd been wanting for some time.
I opened the door and was immediately greeted by the owner of the store.
"Welcome, are you in need of assistance?" He asked with a warm smile that almost made me feel guilty for what I was about to do.
I grabbed a strip of bacon from the back and took a bite before answering, "yea, I'm looking for a dog."
"Any particular breed that you would like?"
"Um, yea, I want a big dog," I answered.
"We do have a dog that grows that big, but he's been here for a while now, and he's almost a year old. Would you like to see him?"
I nodded, secretly planning how I would go about this. In my head, I was thinking about how I would see the dog, pull some bacon out and lure him outside before making an escape.
They let him out before I could finish my planning, and I immediately fell in love. He was the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. He was of a stocky build, with a wide chest, long back and thick neck. His legs were thick with large, heavy paws supporting his weight. He wore a medium length coat with a black base color and rust coloring his paws, chest and throat, along with two spots above his eyes. His chest also sported a white spot of hair that looked out of place, but added personality nonetheless.
He came up to me, hanging his tail low and wagging it along the way. Immediately, he pressed his paws against me and started wagging his tail harder. I pet his head and he jumped on top of me, almost knocking me down. Without a doubt, if he was fully grown, I would've been on the ground right now. I knew this was the dog I had to have.
He seemed to take a liking to me, and I obviously mirrored the feeling.
"I think he likes you," the store owner commented, noting his affection.
"So, how much for him?" I inquired, hoping it wouldn't be too high. I didn't have the heart to steal this dog from him at this point.
"Honestly, we've been trying to sell him for almost a year. He barks and tries to get at everyone that comes in, but he stayed calm around you. We were actually ordered to put him down if he wasn't sold by his birthday next month, but since I don't want to do that, you can take him free of charge."
"Really?!" I smiled at the store owner, and then at the dog who wagged his tail even harder than before.
And so, I took my new dog out of the store with me, and decided upon the name Sake after an old dog that I had, who was taken by the pound while I was in the process of moving to another house. We had come back to get him, and when we got there, our dog was gone. I cried that day.
I met up with Jenni at the execution platform, where she met my new dog, who growled at her but I told him she was a friend, so he warmed up to her.
"You! I've been looking for you for some time now!" A man, tall and skinny with a top hat and a weird rainbow suit called me out from atop the execution platform.
Suddenly, Jenni and I were surrounded by a group of men in cloaks.
"And why is that?" I pondered, ready to defend myself if need be.
"You killed my brother," he growled, jumping off the platform and landing in front of me.
I signaled Sake to go with Jenni, and then whispered into her ear, "go to the ship, I'll meet you over there."
She nodded with understanding, and turned around to leave before being cornered by more cloaked men.
"Pressure Cannon!" I called out, clearing out a path for them.
"After her! And kill the mutt!" the man in the top hat ordered some of his men, while the others stayed with their captain.
"Who was your brother?" I asked, not caring but asking to see if I could buy more time.
"How could you forget? His name was Red Beard, one of the most notorious pirates in the East!"
'Oh, yea, that guy,' remembering his comment that made my blood boil. "Nope, doesn't ring a bell."
He grew a tick mark on his forehead. "I'm going to kill you slowly, and torture everyone you care about."
Ignoring his statement, I said, "oh, yea its coming back to me now. You should've seen his face."
He was growing visibly more annoyed, and I shuddered at the thought of his bloodied body, continuing, "had so many holes in it it might as well have been swiss cheese. He smelled bad too. So do you. Did your parents not teach you how to shower? Do you even know what a shower is?"
At this point, my only goal was to get under his skin.
His fingers started to secrete a white liquid with a noxious odor, one that I could immediately recognize as superglue. If so, I had to make sure to stay away from him.
Before I could jump away from him to keep my distance, two of his henchmen grabbed my arms and held me in place so he could glue my mouth shut.
"Man, that's a shitty power. You probably get zero pussy," I said, trying to hold back laughter.
Just as he went to glue my lips shut, I made a pressure ball and threw it to the ground, creating a blast that forced the two men to release me from their hold. I could only hope that Jenni made it away. I know she could hold her own in a fight, that's why she's the first mate, but I just didn't want her getting caught up in any of the damage my power causes.
My head went back to the situation at hand. "Pressure Bomb!" I called out, attempting to end this fight as soon as possible.
Thankfully, there weren't many people in the area, or there would have been more casualties than just this man's crew members.
Just as the top hat man and I were getting ready to go all out, we were approached by a group of marines, the leader being one with white hair and a cigar in his mouth and his right-hand man, err, woman, a swordsman with short navy blue hair and glasses.
I never could seem to catch a break.
"White Blow!" The captain yelled out, sending a trail of smoke behind a fist towards me.
Thankfully, my devil fruit had prepared me for things like this. I used it to compress his smoke, rendering his attack useless, before throwing the pressurized smoke bomb on the ground, covering the area wth a thick layer of smoke. It took the marine captain some time before he could gather himself, and he made sure to use extra caution when approaching me.
I figured I made a point, so I released a Pressure Ball on my current enemy.
The force sent him back into a group of marines. At that point, they were outnumbering me by hundreds, so I created up an attack on the fly. First, I pressurized a large ball, then several marble-sized balls and encased them into another layer of film. In my head, the smaller balls would act as shrapnel and get dispersed by the large one, taking out as many enemies as I could so I could make an escape.
In reality, it was much more devastating than that.
"Pressure..." I thought for a bit, before deciding on "Grenade!"
I threw it down at the feet of a marine in a large group. The resulting blast massacred a good 20 marines and injured a whole lot more. The buildings, however, were where all the destruction lay. The attack leveled many small isolated buildings, cracked the walls of larger, more structurally sound buildings and, without my knowing, freed an entire jail cell block.
The marines were in a trance, in awe at the destruction. It was amazing, the level of destruction a single attack could do. Now if only I had been a marine instead of a pirate.
Smoker snapped out of his trance first and chased after me.
He caught up to me in record time using his smoke powers. I only just managed to turn around to avoid a deadly blow from his jitte.
"Hold up there buddy, don't get too carried away there. I just shut your first attack down," I cockily told him...
He caught me lacking, however. His jitte had a seastone tip, which instantly sapped my power, and he pinned me down in an instant.
I mustered up what little strength I still had to try to kick Captain Smoker from under him, but to no avail.
If not for my savior, I probably would have died. The man somehow kicked smoker ftom the side, knocking him off me.
I immediately got up, alerted to him and in a fighting stance.
"Ease up, captain. I'm just returning the favor," the man said.
He stood about 6'2" with a lean build and tattoos littering his body. His hair was jet black and hung from his head in dreads. His skin complexion was similar to mine. He had a light stubble adorning his face. The one thing that stood out most to me was the tattoo behind his ear, a tragedy mask. No comedy mask to go along with it, just a tragedy mask. It struck me as strange, but I didn't think anything of it.
"Captain?" I questioned. "You got the wrong guy. And what favor?"
"No, I think I got the right guy. You freed my sister and I from jail. It's only fair I join up with you," he pushed.
"Oh, that was an accident. You're free to go," I told him.
"You don't understand, we have nowhere else to go. I'll die out at sea if you don't take me under your flag."
"I'll think about it. For now, how did you manage to kick that marine? I thought he was impermeable."
He tapped on his leg, making a metallic sound. "I have a prosthetic. And the shin is made out of seastone. It cost me a leg to have it made."
"Oh. Haha. I get it," I said, not amused by what I thought was a joke.
"It wasn't a joke. I gave up my leg to have an advantage against devil fruit users," he said solemnly.
"You should keep your eyes on your enemy!" Smoker yelled, throwing out an attack, which I narrowly dodged.
He also dodged the attack, ignored the marine and spoke to me. "So, how about we fight together. It'll be good for you to see what I can do. My name is-"
"White Blow!" Smoker interrupted, going after me.
"Supercharger!" I called out, taking his smoke in a ball, and compressing it. I named the attack Supercharger because it sounded better than air compressor, and that's technically what a supercharger does; compress air. "Smoke Bomb!"
I threw the ball of smoke away from myself, angering Smoker, and thoroughly impressing the tattooed man.
"Like I was saying, my name is Booth."
"Randall," I replied, giving him a nod. "Now let's get outta here before more marines show up."
"Yes, captain," he agreed, and we made our way to the docks.
As we neared the docks, a woman appeared out of nowhere. She jumped on my back, kissed my ear and chuckled.
"You taste salty, captain," she informed me.
"Good to know, but I'm not your captain," I replied.
"Nonsense, of course you're my captain! Why else would my brother be with you?"
'Brother? Was she talking about Booth?' I thought.
"Get off of me," I ordered sternly, and she complied. I got a better look at her. Her hair was the same jet black, but that's where the similarities (mostly) ended. Her long black hair was held in a high ponytail with bangs covering her forehead. Her skin was pale white, her eyes pale blue like the daytime sky, and she stood around 5'7" tall. The only other similarity was the matching tattoo behind the opposite ear to Booth's. But it wasn't realky matching. It was the comedy mask, which solved the puzzle from earlier. Maybe it had to do with their personalities. From what I had seen, Booth was stern and serious, but she was giddy and playful.
"So, are we joining your crew or not?" she asked impatiently with puppy eyes. "I'm Mayra, by the way."
I took a deep breath. "Fine," I finally caved, allowing them to join. Mayra beamed with happiness and jumped on top of me, showering my cheeks with kisses.
Booth had to pull her off of me. Not like I cared, it was just unorthodox. "Sorry about her, she's not usually like this. She's just excited to be out of jail."
"Wait, you both were in jail? What'd you do?" I wondered aloud.
"Well, we only met in jail. She was transferred here from Shellstown, because it was overcrowded, or so they told her. In reality, we were both scheduled for execution. If not for you, we'd be getting hanged in a few months."
"Then how are you two siblings?" He hadn't answered my question, but he knew what I meant, and he probably didn't feel like talking about it, so I didn't push any more.
"We got matching tattoos to show that we are. We're not related by blood, but we don't need to be to be bonded by sibling love," she chimed in all happily.
"Yea, I can understand that," I said, thinking back to Luffy, who only became my brother right before I left.
As we walked to the docks, feeling satisfied with the day, not one word was spoken, but nothing needed to be said.
"Randall!" Jenni called from the ship. Sake was right beside her, wagging his tail and barking. Then she noticed Booth and Mayra. "Who're these two?"
I introduced them both, and welcomed them to the ship.
Booth noticed our Jolly Roger, or lack thereof, and offered to paint it for us.
"You're an artist?" I asked.
"A tattoo artist, but yea," he told.
"Cool, I'll leave it up to you then. I'm trusting you."
"Any idea of what you want?"
"Surprise me," I said before walking off to see Sake, who Mayra was playing with.
"Good boy!" she praised after he caught a treat she had thrown just seconds earlier.
"His name is Sake," I told her.
"Good Sake!" she followed up.
I snapped my fingers, and he immediately turned to me, earning a pout from Mayra.
I then went to Melly, who was at the helm, steering the ship.
"What's up Captain?"
"Nothing much, just checking up on everybody. Booth is working on our Jolly Roger right now, so we'll be a proper pirate crew beforr reaching reverse mountain."
"That's great! I feel we have a capable crew that has a shot at taking over the Grand Line," he commented.
"Yea? I feel the same way. Even Sake could probably hold his own in a fight."
"Imagine he gets a bounty," Melly laughed.
I snorted. "You really think they'd give a dog a bounty?"
"Well you never know with these marines. They're crazy."
"They're crackheads," I joked, making Melly burst out in laughter.
"Well, I'm gonna go talk to Jenni, see how she's holding up and we might even throw a party to celebrate the birth of our crew."
"Sounds fun," he said, and I agreed.
I found Jenni at the front of the ship, leaning over the railing and watching the sun set.
I leaned over the railing next to her, not saying anything until she broke the silence by saying, "It's beautiful, isn't it? I always loved sunsets, even when I was a part of the Aldin Pirates."
There was a hint of pain in her voice, which hurt me as a captain more than she could have possibly known.
"But I'm free now, and I'm happier than ever to be able to watch the sunset with you, as a part of this crew," she cracked a reassuring smile, and we watched the sunset until it was over, and then I spoke up. "Do you wanna throw a party to celebrate the birth of our crew and our voyage into the Grand Line?"
"I'd love that," she answered.
"You guys are throwing a party? Oh, let me make the food!"
"How long have you been standing there? And you can cook?"
"Only the whole time. And yea! I used to run a restaurant until some dine and dashers ate up my entire food supply and then didn't pay for anything, so I slaughtered them."
"You said that too easily!" Jenni barked, and then turned to me, saying "captain, I don't trust her."
I chuckled. "Relax, she's not gonna bite, ain't that right, Mayra? At least she's on our side."
"Nope!" She grinned innocently.
Soon, Booth completed our Jolly roger. It was a grinning Jolly Roger with two bones crossed behind it, one with a white flag tied around the end. In the jaws of the skull was a gold chain reminiscient of mine. Needless to say, I was proud of him.
In honor of the birth of our crew, the White Flag Pirates, we threw a party for the ages.
Thank you guys so much for the reviews and all the favorites and bookmarks. I don't think I've ever recieved such positivity. Sorry I don't respond to them, but just know that I read them all, and love every single one of you. Hope you all enjoyed, next chapter will be the voyage into the Grand Line and the first arc.