A/N: Baaah, I have been neglecting this story because I got caught up in this new series I'm writing…augh!
---
"Finally! I got a bounty!" Luffy cried jubilantly as he jumped around the rest of the crew. They were all having mixed reactions. "Ooh, it's so much higher than your first one, Zoro!" Zoro merely smirked, glad that he was serving under a man as notorious as he was now.
Monkey D. Luffy—'Mugiwara Luffy.' 100 million beri. A sketch of his face as they had fled from Nezumi's house was drawn, complete with the rubble of the building and the enormous grin on his face.
"I'm…wanted," Nami muttered, wringing her hands. "What am I going to do?"
'Mugiwara Nami.' 16 million beri.
"At least my picture is not too bad…" Nami conceded with a sigh. She was depicted while twisting her body in a turn, swinging her Perfect Clima Tact with deadly accuracy and a sly smile.
"Why is my bounty so low?!" Chopper shrieked, crumpling up his bounty poster before smoothing it out again to look at it in excitement—only to crumple it up in frustration again. "I fought like a man, too!" He was shown running in his smallest form, presumably screeching at Usopp to run from the men that were chasing them. Not very frightening at all, really.
Tony Tony Chopper—'Mugiwara Chopper.' 50 beri.
"It's probably because you fought behind the scenes to watch my back," Usopp explained. He chuckled as he looked at his own poster. He was shown pulling back Kabuto's strings as he took careful aim; the Firebird Star was also in the picture.
'Mugiwara Usopp.' 30 million beri.
"That's quite an impressive price on your head, Usopp," Robin mused. "It's a shame that we didn't have time to properly explore the rest of Italy. Venice would have been lovely."
Nico Robin—'Mugiwara Robin.' 80 million beri.
"Yours is really high too, Robin," Franky noted. "It's probably because of your Devil Fruit power."
'Mugiwara Franky.' 44 million beri.
"I have a Devil Fruit power, too!" Chopper wailed, running over to latch onto Zoro's leg for some means of comfort. Zoro looked down at the distressed reindeer and rubbed his head gently, pulling him up and placing him on his shoulders.
"Poor Chopper," Brooke said with a chuckle. "My bounty is lower than hers as well. Is the fact that I rose from the dead irrelevant in calculating my bounty?"
'Mugiwara Brooke.' 33 million beri. His picture showed his face in poor lighting, giving it a ghastly appearance that scared Chopper into his Guard Point. Zoro swayed in alarm at the sudden puff of fur, trying to breathe.
"Shut up, Brooke. At least your picture looks intimidating," Sanji wailed. "I mean, mine is scary too, but for all the wrong reasons." Everyone stared at Sanji's bounty poster in amusement and sympathy. They had drawn him when he had first kicked the wall in, and he wore the expression of comical fury on his face that he had had when he was ticked off by Brooke.
It was not the most attractive moment in the life of Sanji.
"My eyebrow isn't even curling in the right way!"
'Mugiwara Sanji.' 77 million beri.
"I'm surprised that your first bounty is so high, cook. But then again, you do have the strongest…expression," Zoro stated flatly. "You look constipated."
"Shut up! Let's see your bounty, then!" Sanji growled, but stopped dead when Zoro held his new poster up with that gorgeously deadly depiction of him.
Roronoa Zoro—'Mugiwara Zoro.' 100 million beri.
"One hundred million? That's the same as Luffy!" Sanji sputtered. "Oh…and why are we all given the name Mugiwara? How do they even know that we call each other family?"
"It's probably just a way for them to categorize us and lump us together," Franky said. "Looks like you're officially a Mugiwara, Zoro!"
"Oh, I'm thrilled."
"No need to be sarcastic, marimo. I was happy as hell when Luffy asked me to join the family."
"I can't believe I have to be in the same family as you, baka-cook."
"You guys, shut up for a minute. We're wanted. Internationally. That means…no matter where we go…" Usopp said, looking a little shocked.
"Did you just tell us to shut up?" Zoro and Sanji growled.
"What I mean," Usopp said, nursing a bloody nose, "is that we can't go anywhere without having people on our tails. These pictures are pretty good—even as good as mine. I wonder when they had time to watch us so closely? Where did they even get information about us?"
"It doesn't matter now, does it?" Nami snapped. "We'll be on the run forever now."
"It doesn't seem like such a bad life," Zoro said. "The bounty hunters and Marines will keep us sharp."
"But it might be troublesome when we need to restock and such," Sanji retorted.
"Is there any place that we might be welcome?" Robin wondered out loud.
Luffy laughed. "This just makes it more exciting!"
Nami sighed. "Well, I suppose we should have been expecting this ever since day one. We couldn't have romped around without being hunted forever." She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.
She failed.
"Ack, Nami, why are you hitting me?"
"Ah, Nami-san's fist of love!"
"Woman, getting violent will only make your damned bounty go up!"
---
"Six hundred and seven…six hundred and eight…" Zoro panted, doing handstand pushups. He had escaped from Nami's senseless wrath by climbing up to the crow's nest, and was currently working out. When he was finished, he folded his legs and sat to begin meditating. He had a lot to think about, especially concerning their close proximity to a certain country. He heard the door being pushed open and smelled smoke, with a hint of spice.
"Don't mind me, marimo. We've got to talk, though."
"About what?"
"Our bounty posters."
"Are you still sore about it?"
"…no. But there's something weird about them."
"What?"
"We haven't been that conspicuous. The crew, I mean. Not enough for our names to get out, at any rate, unless Garp tattled. Even in Shanghai, our names didn't get out when we beat up Eneru, and I don't think Vivi would have leaked information about our actions in Egypt, either. But they have full names down here when applicable, and really accurate depictions of us. It couldn't have all happened on one night. Nezumi can't have been the only one who wanted us to be dispatched." Sanji took a deep pull from his cigarette, looking worried.
"What are you getting at?"
"What I mean is that we've been watched. I don't know by who, or how, but something's up."
Zoro shrugged. "Don't think into it too much. Government policing agencies have information networks all over the world. Something as simple as a name and face are not that hard to obtain."
"I still have an odd feeling, though."
"It's probably just from lunch."
"Oi!"
---
"How long will our supplies last, Sanji-kun?"
"Oh, easily up to three or four months, Nami-san!"
"Great. We're heading to England."
"Nani?! When did you decide this?"
"When I took a look at our maps, Usopp."
"Why England, all of a sudden?" Usopp squinted at the maps she had laid out. "Why not France, or Spain? Those are on the way."
"I didn't want to go to France for reasons that should be obvious," Nami scowled while jerking a thumb at Zoro, who grunted as he rolled over in his sleep. "And Spain? Do you really want to go visit the homeland of a man that we killed? Like, uh, Donquixote?"
"Crocodile was from England," Usopp argued stubbornly. "Why don't we just sail forever and see how long we can last that way?"
"England's the furthest we could go in one trip, and I'd rather not make more stops than necessary in our current predicament."
"Having bounties isn't all that bad, Nami. We haven't even been attacked yet."
A deafening boom from a cannon and splash interrupted their conversation.
"Way to jinx it, Usopp."
The crew assembled outside, to find a familiar warship facing them. Zoro groaned.
"I knew it. We were sailing too damned close to France," Zoro cursed. "Oi! Smoker!"
"Don't call out with such disrespect, kid," Smoker growled, coming up to stand by the rail. "What did I tell you about us meeting?"
"It's not like I wanted to see your ugly mug again."
"Try saying that again. I dare you, Roronoa."
"Okay. It's not like I wanted—"
"Ah, Commodore!" Nami punched Zoro square in the jaw, sending him flying (much to Tashigi's amusement and horror). "We're just passing through. Peacefully."
"Not with a sixteen million beri bounty on your head, you're not, 'Mugiwara Nami,'" Smoker growled as Nami paled. His men were assembled in neat lines behind him and Tashigi. "I warned you already."
"What are you doing around here, anyway? Didn't you head to Edo?" Usopp asked suspiciously.
Smoker coughed. "Well, it turns out that my superiors learned of my connection to Roronoa, and felt that I would be the best person to track him down. So here I am. It's overkill though, to send someone like me after an idiot like him."
"I'm still here, you know. I can hear you."
"Does it look like I give a damn?"
"We're not even going to stop by France," Zoro growled in annoyance. "We're just passing on through, as the witch said."
Smoker looked at Zoro oddly. "Even if the circumstances were the same as when we last met, I still couldn't let you go. Roronoa…"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Your crew is not the first to have received such ridiculous bounties after your first official 'debut,'" Smoker said. "Eight other crews have members with similar circumstances, although—" Smoker paused, looking both proud and sarcastic, "—you should feel honored, Roronoa. There are only eleven of you overall who had bounties over one hundred million, and only one other man isn't the captain of his own crew. I doubt that you've met them yet, though."
"What are you talking about?" Zoro asked in bewilderment.
Smoker sighed impatiently. "They're calling you the Eleven Supernovas now, you know. Because you just appeared overnight and stunned the world. At least, that's how Hina worded it, but that just sounds like a lot of bull that basically means…they've identified the threat and want to kill the weeds before they grow too fast."
"What does that have to do with this situation?"
"Think about it, Roronoa. The World Government has risked its reputation at such an early stage in its conception to target you rookies. They're either looking to gain respect by your execution, or using preemptive measures to ensure that you don't go out of control. Why would they do that?"
"I don't know. Because they're scared?"
Smoker smacked his forehead. "That might be part of it. It looks like I'm going to have to spell it out for you. Don't you people read the newspapers?"
Nami and Robin raised their hands.
"...should've known. Have you ever heard of the New World?"
Most of the crew shook their heads, save for Zoro and Robin. Before Smoker could speak further, Robin spoke up.
"Perhaps for such weighty conversation, we should settle down?" she suggested with a demure smile. Smoker scowled.
"Do you expect me to parley with pirates and just converse casually?
"Yes. It seems as though that's what we were doing, so we might as well get comfortable," Robin said smoothly. "Cook-san has an especially delicious recipe for tea cakes, if I recall correctly."
Smoker rolled his eyes. "You're all idiots, you know that?"
He wrapped an arm around Tashigi's waist before jumping over the edge of his ship, his body billowing into smoke as he moved over the water. He landed lightly, putting a surprised Tashigi beside him. Smoker looked at Tashigi with a raised eyebrow and she sighed before turning around and snapping out orders.
"Men! I'll need you to keep watch on the ship and the waters if it turns out that trouble arises. We are not to be disturbed. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Excellent. Now," she said, "Where are those tea cakes you were talking about?"
---
The galley had never had such an odd atmosphere. There was amusement on Robin's part, excitement on Luffy's, boredom from Zoro, suspicion (and enamored calls of 'Mellorine!') from Sanji, and fear from just about everyone else. Smoker leaned back casually in his chair while Tashigi sat stiffly beside him, looking around at the cozy galley. When Sanji placed a cake in front of her with a wide smile, she bit into it and positively beamed.
"Smoker-san, it wouldn't be considered bribery to accept this hospitality and food, right? Because these are really good," she mumbled around a mouthful of cake. Smoker huffed in exasperation and shook his head. "Good!" She took another bite, humming in appreciation.
"Now, to get back to our original conversation…" Robin suggested.
Smoker grunted, drinking from the teacup that Sanji handed him. He didn't seem particularly pleased by the fact that it was pink with a floral pattern. "Right. The New World. It is one of the last wildernesses of the world. Legend has it that it is home to wonders like the Fountain of Youth, the golden city of El Dorado, and most importantly of all, the fabled One Piece." Nami's eyes gleamed as she heard the words 'golden city.'
At this, Luffy stiffened and shouted, "Old man! Stop!" When Smoker glared at him in irritation, he continued, "If this is some sort of clue to where the One Piece is, then don't—say—another—word."
Smoker chuckled humorlessly. "Boy, if it was known for sure that the One Piece was there, then it would not be so secret that you wouldn't have heard already. It's just a rumor. After all, Gold Roger's last trip was said to have been there. But this New World is not easy to reach. It seems as though it isn't connected to any land mass save for the icy regions of the northern poles, and going through the Atlantic Ocean is by no means an easy feat."
"So people know about this place, then?" Nami asked curiously.
Smoker nodded. "Knowing is one thing, but reaching it is quite another."
"People have said that it is a country protected by the gods," Tashigi murmured. "Surrounded on both sides by the two largest oceans, with savages in the hot south and ice in the frigid north. It is truly the kind of place where legends would come true."
As Sanji heard this, the hand that was pouring tea for the guests nearly slipped. Was the shitty swordsman telling me the truth before? A tropical, warm ocean on one side and a colder, wilder one on the other…All Blue…
"Furthermore, the ruins of ancient civilizations that have toppled mysteriously at the heights of their glory have been found, although few have ever been able to find it through the jungles that surround it," Tashigi continued, looking at Robin curiously as the older woman's hands shook.
"The lost civilizations," Robin whispered into her cup, not elaborating. "Whole empires that were built and crumpled, whose history has been lost…"
Smoker nodded. "It is the kind of place that adventurers yearn for, despite the dangers of traveling there."
"Why are you telling us all this?" Franky asked suddenly. "It sounds super, but just outside you were saying that you had to take us in."
Smoker blinked. "Oh, that. Since the World Government hasn't established a real presence in the New World, they don't want it to become a haven for pirates and outlaws. Anyone who's strong enough to potentially rule a new nation there is being targeted, although the ones that they fear the most are the Four Emperors. What the World Government fears most is that one of these four men will have a large enough presence to rule the seas from the New World as a Pirate King."
"The New World would be the crux of an empire like that," Tashigi explained. "If all the legends were proven to be true, then the Pirate King would have enough wealth to found a great nation from the One Piece or El Dorado, be protected by the vast oceans, and even potentially have eternal life from the Fountain of Youth."
"Who might these Four Emperors be?" Brooke asked.
"You may have heard of them. Red-haired Shanks, Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate—"
"No way! You mean, Shanks could be the Pirate King? I'm not going to let him!" Luffy said stubbornly. "I'm going to be the Pirate King!" His eyes shone with determination, and he cracked his knuckles as though in anticipation of a fight.
Smoker groaned. "You see…that sentiment is exactly why we must take men like you down now."
"What?!"
"White Snake!" Clouds of smoke spewed from Smoker's body and the rest of the crew jumped up in alarm, trying to escape the Logia's reach.
"No!"
---
A/N: By the 1800s the Americas were not really as wild as I make them out to be—in fact, this was around when the Industrial Revolution was occurring. However, I am taking certain liberties with my timelines (actually, very big ones) and thus, North and South America are as they were when the Europeans first began to arrive in larger numbers several centuries earlier.
And yes, Luffy's bounty is equal to Zoro's because the circumstances in which he received it are different from the ones in the manga. Sigh. It's just so much cooler when he has a 300 million beri bounty...maybe I'll have him beat up some government official again just so I can give him a higher bounty.