New arc! New arc! Milestone! For a while now, we are going to be into an alternate universe of the actual One Piece world. This means that everyone is going to have to yell at me if I begin to sound too much like the manga and all should expect an eventual murdering the plotline. Take the flaming invitation to heart. Not many people want to be flamed. Thanks to White Butterfly-san, Sakura-chan and weixuan-san for reviewing last chapter!
Illicit Memories
Jaya Arc: Enter Adventure
Due to the storm, it took the Mugiwara Kaizokudan the entire day to clean up the Merry Go. It was hard work filled with hauling off heavy driftwood and clumps of dead seaweed and unusable fish. Nami and Robin did virtually no work at all, but whenever the guys would begin to show even the slightest sign of slacking, Nami would pull out the Den Den Mushi and threaten to call Gormal's aunt. Everyone was finished in time for supper and the entire ship was able to sleep easily due to the superfluous excess of physical labor. Even Gormal slept peacefully, despite the agitated glares he had received the entire day.
Immediately the next day they began searching for Yume. From sunrise to sunset for ten whole days, the Mugiwara Kaizokudan did nothing but search for their overboard crewmate. In the end, Gormal and Maon had to salute the setting sun, tears streaming down their faces; she was never coming back.
The few weeks that had to follow this however were peaceful; too peaceful for the comfort of the crew of the Merry Go. The entire crew had all become quite restless since the storm that took away Yume had come and gone and they were now on edge, ready for action to jump up and slap them in the face.
"Naaaaamiii..." Luffy whined. "How much longer until the next island!?" The straw-hatted boy shuffled over to his navigator and slumped over on the table she was working on.
"Jaya is coming up soon," Nami growled, annoyed at the fact that it was the fifth time that hour that Luffy had bothered her. "Now if you don't leave me alone, I'll drown you before we get there!"
"Kya!" Luffy screamed mockingly, making fun of the ginger-haired woman's threat. He scuttled off and tried to find someone to play with.
"He's so annoying!" Nami hissed, sighing out of frustration. Robin calmly walked up to the navigator and sat down with a rather lengthy history book.
"Captain-san being himself today?" she asked with a sigh.
"You have no idea," Nami replied blandly. "Still, I can barely wait to go to Jaya. It is supposed to be a spring island..."
"Oi Nami!" Zoro called out from the other side of the ship. "Is it supposed to rain!?"
"No, why?" Nami shouted back. She heard the tickling of small objects hitting the deck of the ship. Looking up, her eyes began to grow wide with fright.
"This doesn't feel like rain, baka marimo," Sanji spat, holding out his hand and letting the objects hit his hand. In the other, he had a pair of drinking glasses filled with lemonade for Nami and Robin.
"Everyone! Grab onto something!" Nami screeched, running over to the mast and grabbing hold. The others looked up and panicked as an extremely large ship falling down from the sky came into sight as it appeared to be coming down upon them.
"What in the...?!" Sanji gasped as he grabbed onto the railing. The other ship came crashing into the water besides them, dwarfing the Merry Go twenty-fold. The smaller ship bobbed up and down in the water, nearly falling prey to several large waves.
"KYYYAAAA!!!" everyone screamed as they tried to stay clung to the ship. The little caravel tossed and convulsed in the wild water, yet everyone held on through it all. Once the sea settled, the Mugiwara Kaizokudan began to stir and stare at the sinking wreckage.
"What in the name of Avalon was that!?" Maon asked, rushing over to the side railing and examining the other ship's sinking keel. "That ship was positively gigantic!"
"Tch. It was only a galleon," Gormal said sternly, watching as the waves claimed another masted victim. "Those ships are more particular to before the Age of Piracy that we're in right now. They're slightly rarer now than in the past considering now pirates prefer small to midsize ships and crews, but you still can find them in military service or in the larger fleets." Sanji, Zoro and Chopper looked at him suspiciously.
"Correct Deck Hand-san," Robin said, walking over to some debris that had washed up onto the deck. "You sure do know a lot about the ship."
"My Auntie Mordag studied history in the West Blue for a while when she was a traveler. She taught that stuff to my cousin Meadhbh and myself when we were just young tots after our fathers left."
"I see..." Robin said as she pried open a box using her Hana Hana no Mi. Inside the box was a skeleton with bone fragments scattered everywhere.
"What are you doing messing with the dead!?" Usopp cringed, hiding behind Zoro. The swordsman scowled and watched as Robin collected some of the bone fragments from the coffin.
"Did you find something?" the swordsman asked coldly.
"Yes," the archaeologist said in a rather pleased manner as she put together the bone fragments. When she was done, a skull sat on the deck before her.
"That's amazing!" Sanji exclaimed. "You put it back together!"
"There is a hole here that is not natural," Robin observed, pointing at a space in the skull that was not enclosed by bone.
"Someone get clubbed to death?" Gormal asked.
"No. It is a kind of surgery called trepanation, right Doctor-san?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah!" Chopper piped up, peeking at the skull from behind the mast. "It was used a long time ago to treat illnesses and stuff!"
"See? My guess is that this man died of illness while at sea around two hundred years ago at about the age of thirty. His teeth are still even in tact, thanks to the rubber oil on them; a custom particular to a certain area in the South Blue." She opened a book and began scanning the pages.
"Wow, you can get all that from just looking at a skull?" Nami marveled.
"That and more," Robin said. "Look at this. Saint Breeze from the Kingdom of Breeze. It sailed two hundred and eight years ago, yet never returned."
"I think we have a match," Gormal said, glancing at the book Robin had open on her lap. "Now, where did it come from?"
"The sky, idiot," Zoro scoffed.
"I know that!" Gormal snapped.
"Ano... guys..." Nami said, her eyes staring at her wrist. Everyone looked at the navigator as she gasped at her Log Pose. The needle was pointing straight upwards.
"Ah, it must have locked onto a 'Sky Island'," Robin said, closing her book and standing up. "I have always heard of such events, but never witnessed one."
"An island in the sky?" Maon wondered, gazing up at the many fluffy white clouds above.
"Impossible, the Log Pose must be broken," Nami said, shaking the device attached to her wrist.
"The Log Pose is never broken," Robin said. She tried to get another word in, but was interrupted by a certain red-vested teen running around the ship blindly.
"Help me! Help me! Get it off!" the yelled, pointing at what had lodged itself over his face… a human skull.
"Oh, it must have fallen off the other ship and onto Luffy," Gormal said blandly as Luffy ran into the mast, cracking the skull into pieces. Luffy fell onto his back and a piece of paper floated down onto his face that had been stuck inside the old skull.
"I'm going to go train, this is boring me," Zoro said dully. Sanji raised a curly eyebrow as the swordsman slunk off on his own.
"Nami!!!" Luffy cheered. "Nami! Nami! Nami…!" He got up and his eyes glittered over the piece of paper.
"What Luffy?" the navigator snapped, still shaking the Log Pose.
"I wanna go here!" the boy-captain smiled, shoving the paper in Nami's face. Nami looked at the paper and gasped.
"Luffy? Where'd you get this?"
"What is it Nami?" Usopp asked, looking over the woman's shoulder.
"'Skypiea'" she said, holding the map out at a distance so that the others could also see the faded paper.
"By George," Maon breathed, his eyes bugging out.
"Is it really real Nami?" Chopper asked.
"I wonder how one would go to it," Sanji mused. Nami simply got frustrated and crumpled the map angrily.
"It's got to be a fake," she said, throwing the paper ball over her shoulder.
"Nami! It has to be real!" Luffy whined. "I wanna go there! We have the map!"
"Luffy! Islands in the sky?! Impossible!"
"Nami!"
"We're not going!" Nami snapped, seemingly resolute in her decision.
"Nami, I'm captain and I say that we find Skypiea," Luffy said, uncrinkling the paper the best that he could. "Come on! It'll be fun! Besides, you would be the only person with an island in the sky on their map!" He watched impatiently as Nami began pondering and suddenly came to a epiphany.
"I have a different idea," Nami smirked. "Hey Usopp, remember those devices you and Maon were working on last week?"
"Yeah, what about them?" the marksman asked.
"Bring them out."
"If you say so," Usopp sighed. Both he and Maon disappeared into the hold and came back out dragging three large barrels and a large contraption that resembled a bicycle-powered pump.
"What are we going to do Nami?" Chopper asked, eyeing the pump with suspicion.
"It's not what 'we' are going to do, it's what Zoro, Sanji-kun and Gormal are going to do," Nami smiled. Instantly, her head snapped in the direction of the deck where Zoro was working out and her mood changed in an instant. "ZORO! YOU GET YOUR REAR DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!"
"What is it now you witch!?" Zoro whined as he dropped his weights.
"Come here! You have a job to do!" Zoro cringed as soon as he saw the barrels and pump.
"No way!" he protested. No matter how much the swordsman complained and threatened, however, he still ended up standing on the edge of the ship with one of the barrels on top of his head after all was said and done.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Gormal muttered as he fidgeted inside of his own uncomfortable barrel.
"Oh Nami-swan, what, may I ask, are we going to be finding for you?"
"Just take a wild guess Sanji-kun," Nami said sweetly as she watched Sanji get ready to jump off the side.
"Gold," said the rest of the crew simultaneously. Nami huffed and glared at the guilty party sourly.
"Fine, but that ship is over two hundred years old! It could have treasure on it! Treasure that could pay back some fairly substantial tabs that are owed..."
"Zoro! What are you waiting for! You need to go pay off our tabs!" Usopp said quickly, shoving the green-haired man off the side of the ship. The sniper looked over the side and saw Zoro make a very rude hand gesture towards him as he crashed into the water.
"Well, I guess that we had better go join him," Gormal sighed. He and Sanji both jumped off the side of the Merry Go and landed in the sea. Down the three men descended into the briny depths; all the while, an enlarged Chopper turning the crank on the pump to feed them more air and more tubing.
"Hey! Are you lot okay down there!?" Maon shouted down the tubing.
"Yeah! Now quit your screaming!" Gormal barked.
"Hey, are we supposed to meet up with sea snakes?" Zoro asked.
"Hey look Marimo-Brain," Sanji chuckled. "I see a giant green lump down there. Has you mother come to visit?"
"Ero-bastard. I'll kill you when we surface."
"Try me."
"Stop bickering!" Nami ordered. She grabbed the middle and rightmost tubes and began yelling into them. "We have no time for your silly arguments now! Before long you won't even be able to hear each other! There's work to do! Now get to it!"
"Hai Nami-swan!!" Sanji swooned.
"Shut your trap, woman. We're getting to it," Zoro scoffed. Irked, Nami yanked on Zoro's tube until she could hear the swordsman curse in surprise. Right before the enraged woman was able to tie the rope as a temporary reminder to Zoro about why she should not be crossed, an arm blossomed from her own and knocked away the tube, allowing Zoro to move freely and more importantly, breathe.
"Stop thinking irrationally Navigator-san," Robin sighed, looking over the side of the ship to where the three tubes crept into the sea below. "That was an answer Swordsman-san does not usually give you. We know he's a bit crude, but normally not to that extent."
"Whatever," Nami puffed. She was about to bark some more orders down the tubes when a sound in the distance cut her off.
Sal-vage!
"What was that?" Chopper asked, keeping a firm hold on the pump.
Sal-vage! Sal-vage!
"I don't know..." Nami replied, looking around for the source of the sound.
Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage!
"Uhh... Maon?"
"What is it Usopp?"
Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage!
"Do you see what I see...?"
"A giant monkey in gaudy cover-alls?"
"Good. That means that I haven't gone crazy."
Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage! Sal-vage!
A rather large ship pulled up alongside the Merry Go, dwarfing the caravel in comparison. The prow was adorned with a ridiculously large chibi monkey holding cymbals big enough to flatten even Chopper's human form easily. On the deck, an ape-man stood proudly, seemingly trying to show off.
"Stop the ship!" he cried out. "Oook! This is where the ship sunk! We must salvage immediately!" His crew members cheered, clashing cymbals and singing joyously.
"Great, who is this character?" Nami groaned.
"That's Salvage King Masira," Maon said, scratching his chin. "He's got a hefty bounty on his head too, if I'm not mistaken."
"How large of a bounty would you call 'hefty' Musician-san?" Robin asked.
"Anything over twenty million," Maon nodded. "I'm used to bounties from the Four Seas though, so Masira's twenty-three million is impressive to me. On the Grand Line though, the bounty is almost a starter value for some."
"Maon, you do realize how much Luffy, Zoro and Robin are worth, right?" Nami asked blandly.
"Speaking of Luffy, where is he?" Usopp asked. "I thought he was right there behind me."
"Sanji left out Luffy's lunch so that he doesn't bother us and mess this up," Nami explained.
"I know how much they are worth," Maon sighed, continuing on with conversation before the tangent on their captain. "Just remember though, bounties reflect the potential threat an individual poses to the Elder Stars and the World Government. Power alone might as well count for nothing. A scrawny little weakling can be worth twice as much as Zoro or Luffy, provided he proved to have the ability to topple the World Order easier. To put it simply, it's just a matter of…"
"Oook! Stop ignoring me!" Masira half-cried-half-shouted, reminding the Mugiwara Kaizokudan that he was on the other ship. They looked over and saw him waving wildly with a large grin across his face.
"Great..." Nami sighed as she watched the ape-man blush at the attention.
"Alright crew!" Masira announced as soon as he stopped waving at the occupants of the Merry Go. "Just pretend that those people are not there or one of our own or something. Having them watching shouldn't make us nervous!"
"Right Boss!" came the unanimous answer from the crew. Every member of Masira's crew began bustling about, tending to their own specific tasks.
"NOW LET'S SALVAGE THAT SHIP!"
Author's Notes
Random Gormal Knowledge: His ability to do this is going to become significant... and before I get any complaints, he is not going to even have a chance to come close to replace Robin, so don't even think about it.
Masira: One of the most adorable monkeys ever! He can't beat Luffy, but those overalls make him a sure contender! -squee-
Maon's Bounty Spiel: Being formerly in an assassin trio, he has a very good idea about who out there has bounties on their heads and how the system works. In the Blue Seas, they are more based on strength than ability to defy the World Order, while on the Grand Line and all, it is more of a threat basis. Maon's so not a newb at this and neither am I.
Edits: None that I can remember.