Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece
Merry Christmas Day. I don't have any recent Christmas chapters but I do have one Christmas chapter in one of my other fanfictions. Thank you CuddlyChristina and happy holidays.
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The group would then take off in order to resume their adventures. However, when the next day came, it was clear that Charlotte and her nakama were obtaining very high bounties. For instance, Charlotte herself was about two million bellis.
"I only asked for three things and because no one listens to the captain... I am going to die just so someone can become very rich."
Charlotte knew she couldn't say this was unseasonable since she killed someone.
"I feel like I've let myself down." she said, hanging her head in shame.
"I don't think you've did." Hardy replied with a consoling smile.
"Oh really? And how big is your bounty, Mr. Pacifist?"
"Oh, geez. I dunno, about 150 million belis?" Hardy asked, biting his lower lip out of nervousness.
Charlotte's jaw just dropped at the sound of that big number.
"Are you shitting me?! If that is true, I am just floored!" she exclaimed.
"I'm just as surprised as you. I didn't kill a single person there."
"I bet the rest of us have bounties...and for me, it's gonna be capture and a lot of lynching!" Henry added, his teeth chattering.
Etoile hit the mast with a bloody fist.
"Shit! Now what?!" she asked.
Frisk looked around waiting for one of them to come up with a solution. When no one did, he did.
"We do what your parents did, Charlotte. We keep sailing looking for allies and resources just like the Strawhats did. And best of all, cigs and booze."
Charlotte couldn't help but smile. "That sounds pretty good...we'll do it, all of us!" she exclaimed.
The crew didn't cheer for her or even bother putting on a smile. They didn't have a reason to be excited on this new adventure.
"Are you sure about that? Why are you so optimistic for anyway?" Hardy asked.
"Yeah, we're not doing it just so we can get tickled in the end!" Etoile added.
"Anyways, we sail and hope where we go doesn't end up in a two year time lapse estranged from one another." Frisk finished.
Charlotte nodded. "Agreed." she said, along with the others.
Soon everyone got to see their wanted posters, their titles, and their bounties. They kept bickering about it till nightfall.
"I still can't believe it, Charlotte has the highest bounty of us all!" Etoile exclaimed.
Well of course she's going to have a high bounty," Henry interjected. "She's the captain of this vessel."
"And since we checked them, it looks like you probably got the lowest of them all." Fritz replied.
"Exactly!" Henry said. "I don't even know why!"
"Guess being a former Marine means you won't ever be lynched or proved to be a traitor of your own base." Etoile said.
"Hopefully..." Henry said, a relieved sigh escaping his lips.
Not too far away from the boat, the same blue haired girl who manipulated Herbert to attack Charlotte in her own home was in a small rowboat doing calculations on a calculus.
"And the five of them have character points of...0.5. Wow, what a bunch of lame characters." She teetered.
She frowned in disappointment as she could slightly see them from a distance. She couldn't write what would happen to them, but she had a word she would enact on them: revenge.
Her frown soon turned into a grin almost instantly at the thought.
The next day, Charlotte went down to the hull where she stored her two wheeler.
She sighed as she told herself, "Hopefully, we'll be able to get our boat back. If it's ever possible that is."
Charlotte learned absolutely nothing about the machine and surfaced to find Etoile high in the mast.
"You're being a little light-headed lately; probably from being formerly cooped up with the Marines." she told her.
"Yeah...I don't understand why I was so super-cheerful yesterday." Charlotte replied, rubbing the back of her neck.
"Well I'm not a psychiatrist. All I can say is the best way to forget about your troubles is by reading a book."
"Sounds reasonable." Charlotte replied, before heading into the boat to find a book at the library.
She of course forgot that being on a ship they didn't have many books. Despite a small supply of books, Charlotte didn't care much. She was the only crewmate who wasn't acting like books were monsters.
Then, she saw a book with a black cover and two golden lines etched on the ridge.
Out of curiosity, she walked over to it, picking it up in her hands. Charlotte had wondered if this book was magical or not.
Suddenly, her ship stopped sailing. It seemed that they hit a rock in the water.
She went back to the surface. Turns out they did hit something, but it wasn't a rock...it was a train. A train made of silver alloy.
"What the...?!" she asked.
"Holy crap, there's a freakin' train underneath our ship!" Henry exclaimed.
That train resurfaced making everyone on Charlotte's ship jump. Etoile was the first one to go near the train other than just questioning its existence.
"So how did it get under the ship? That's what I wanna know." Etoile asked the others.
"Why don't you just ask them?" Fritz said blatantly. "There's people in there."
Etoile shrugged before taking a peek into the windows, as did Charlotte and Hardy. They saw an overweight elderly man with a purple nose waving at them.
"Hello! Would you mind asking me where we are?" she asked in a warm voice.
No sooner did she ask, a violet haired lady in a kimono walked out.
"Excuse me, but I was going to ask that same question. But I will ask you this: judging by your clothes, are you outlaws?" the woman asked Charlotte and the others.
"So what if we are. Are you going to hand us in for our bounties."
The girl covered her mouth to laugh a little. "No. My name is Yukino and this train belongs to my father."
"Yukino Hikawa?! Daughter of Senichiro Hikawa, the Train Grandmaster?!" Charlotte asked.
"Indeed I am. Would you like to see the interior of my father's train?"
"Um...sure. Why not?" Charlotte replied, shrugging her shoulders. The others ended up agreeing with her, indicating their willingness to comply.
Charlotte led the way followed by Hardy, Henry, Etoile, and finally Fritz.
"I can tell this train is pretty...high-class." Fritz said.
"I'm glad you like it; sounds like you do have good taste in style." Yukino replied with a smile.
"Well back when I was a teacher, the girls would get on a train not nearly as luxurious. It was thanks to cooperation with the Frankie Family."
"The Frankie family? Who are they?" Henry asked, blinking in curiosity.
"Don't you know your history?" Charlotte chuckled. "Frankie was the shipwright of the Strawhat Pirates and his family were his old team of shipwrights."
"Oh, yeah...why didn't I forget that?" Henry said, scratching the back of his neck as he slightly chuckled.
They passed by a blond haired boy with a straw yellow yutaka working on a small drill fit in a glove.
"Excuse me, but who are you? Did Miss Yukino send you here or something?" he asked.
"No. We just came here on our own." Etoile replied.
"Really? And from the looks of it, you must be a group of pirates!" he told them.
"Pirates!? How'd you guess?" Hardy asked.
"We've been living in the Pirate Era eighty years since Gol D Rogers was killed, and every twenty years some new Pirate King rises up and makes commonfolk and dreamers think they should be pirates. Your teenagers, the basis of all pirates."
"Sounds like someone must have been researching a lot on our kind." Charlotte said with a grin.
"And if we're lucky, we could pretty much be the next big thing." Etoile added.
They all had their fingers crossed.
"Anyways, why did this train get under our boat?" Charlotte asked.
"It has the capability to move underwater and you were in our way." Yuki answered.
"An underwater train?!" Charlotte said, her eyes widening in surprise, as were the others.
"Oh, yes, it's underwater alright." Yukino told her with a smile.
"It was amazing enough when they made a train that could keep monsters away, but this just blows my mind." Charlotte said.
As they were talking, a passenger with something strange glowing in their chest quietly stood up and left. This strange thing made Henry a little curious.
"Excuse me, but what's that fellow doing in the train? There's something strangely glowing in the center of their body and I wonder what it is." he asked Charlotte and the other pirates.
"Did you say glowing chest?" The blond boy asked running frantically out of his room.
"What? Did I say something unexpected?" Henry asked.
"I think something's really fishy around here. What if there's more of these...people?" Charlotte said as she looked around.
Later that day, the crew were allowed to eat, talk, and investigate the train in the sea.
"So one of your friends brought up something in particular?" Yukino asked.
"Yes, that's correct. There seemed to be someone odd walking around this train. I don't know who it is, but Henry has been nagging us about looking for them." Charlotte replied.
"My brother here was able to get a glimpse of him." Yukino said, pointing towards the blonde boy, whose name was Mikio, and that very same boy who flinched upon hearing of the strange creature inside the train.
"This person was tall, brawny, buzzcut, and strangely enough seemed to have an emerald embedded in his chest and no irises."
"Sounds like a very good description to me. We'll be on the lookout for him and possibly more of his kind." Charlotte told Yukino with a smile.
"Indeed, you will." she replied.
Charlotte didn't like the way she ordered her around.
' Cheeky,' she thought to herself. She looked over at Hardy and the others, and said, "Sounds like we got someone to deal with. Let's move!"
Charlotte moved in front followed by Henry, Etoile, Hardy, and Yukino. Fritz wasn't even in the line.
"I wonder what these particular creatures are after?" Yukino asked Charlotte. "I don't really know. We'll just have to find out ourselves." she replied.
"Before we talk about these creatures, could you fools at least find one first." That was Fritz. He made his way around the corner, armed with a gauntlet with a spike on it.
"Excuse me, but where'd you get that?" Henry asked, pointing at Fritz's weapon.
"I took it from that blond kid. I don't need your improvement on this, your teenagers and I'm a professor."
"Make sure you bring it back!" Mikio called out. "Oh, don't worry; I will, trust me." Fritz replied.
"I'm not even a teenager!" Henry exclaimed out of annoyance.
Fritz's roiling on his nakama was interrupted by the sight of red in Mikio's eyes. Shortly after seeing his eyes, he heard numerous sounds of charging feet through the train.
"Did you hear something?!" he asked.
"It might be obvious that it's coming from that creature." Hardy replied.
Hardy was right. A swarm of colorful, zombie looking people with gems in their chests ran through the halls; pushing and shoving with ferally wide mouths.
Yukino gasped, and Mikio almost flinched in terror. Not to mention almost the people in their seats screamed in fear as they rose from their seats. Charlotte and her nakama, however, were unfazed.
Fritz surprised everyone twirling his hand around the needle in his arm. With just his touch, the needle turned red and soon launched out breaking through three of the monsters' gems.
The three monsters hit the floor, apparently having their lifeforce sucked out thanks to Fritz's actions.
Charlotte unhooked her claws from her pocket, and her face started to go wild in the form of a scary wolf, but before she could attack the monsters...Yukino jumped over her with a completely black katana in her hands.