Here we go again everyone. I can't thank you all enough for the continued support. Hope you enjoy!

Wealth, Fame, Power…

Chapter 42: Imposters

"I'm not going to say this again Mister Nine! The stomach is behind us!"

"Oh shush woman! I know my whale anatomy, we're going the right way!"

"No, you idiot! This way leads back into the intestines! We need to turn around!"

"Lalalala! I'm not listening, Miss Wednesday! I'm growing tired of your nagging."

"Ugh! I can't stand you sometimes!"

"Says you! I swear, every woman with any beauty at all has such a troublesome personality. What a waste."

Gasping in offense, the blunette leered at her partner as maliciously as she could. "How dare y-"

"Woahhh!"

The two shady individuals instantly turned on their heels when they heard a loud cry right behind them, and the second they did they saw none other than Luffy falling flat on his face onto the mushy floor.

"Bleh! Gross! I got some in my mouth!"

Miss Wednesday and Mister Nine both stared at the boy with their mouths hanging open in slight confusion. The last thing they were expecting to see down here was another human being besides the old man.

It only took another moment or two of watching the boy gag and spit for the two to look at each other and draw their weapons.

"Hey, you! What the hell are you doing down here!?" Mister Nine demanded, reaching back behind his belt and drawing a pair of metal bats.

His blue haired ally however, remained silent. Not feeling any need to add onto her partner's words as she drew a peculiar weapon of her own.

Luffy slowly stood to his feet, shaking away all of the remaining gooey liquid that covered his rubber body. "Huh? Oh me? I don't know what you're talking about man, but I have no idea where I am. What is this place?"

Irritation was a very clear emotion on Mister Nine's face. The clueless way this kid talked really irked him for some reason. "Listen here you little brat-"

"Wait, so you're not here to hunt the whale?" Miss Wednesday cut off, successfully irritating her partner even more. She had good reason though, something about the boy's innocent tone sounded very genuine to her.

Barely even paying attention to the conversation, Luffy just shrugged as he dried off his hat as best as he could. Only responding when he was done and his treasure was back safely on his head. "Whale? What are you talking about, lady? I'm just looking for my crew."

"What!? Crew!? Are you a pirate!?" The blunette yelped in fear.

The rubber man only smiled and nodded before bringing up his fingers to count off. "Yep, sure am. Maybe you've seen em around here, there's a scary looking swordsman, a pretty looking navigator, a stupid looking sniper, and a fancy looking cook. See any people like that?"

Blinking repeatedly, Miss Wednesday found herself mocking the boy in her head. Even if she wanted to help a scumbag pirate in the first place, such generic descriptions would be no help at all. Hell, Mister Nine fit the bill perfectly for the teen's sniper.

And speaking of that blubbering idiot, it looked like he was thinking the same thing as his partner, except his next course of action was much more bold.

…

And stupid.

"Die pirate scum! Baroque Works will have your bounty!"

And with that, the orange haired agent was sprinting full speed at his opponent, rearing back his twin bats in the process.

Miss Wednesday resisted the urge to facepalm at her partner's actions. They didn't even know if this pirate had a bounty in the first place, for all they knew he was just some worthless smallfry.

But nevertheless, she supported her partner, following up behind him with her peacock slasher spinning incredibly fast on her finger.

Now seeing that talking was no longer a viable solution, Luffy turned serious and secured his hat to his head, bending his knees in anticipation of the first incoming attack.

"You better be worth something, you bastard!" Mister Nine screamed, lunging at the boy and swinging his right hand bat with all his might.

However, where he expected to crash with a skull, he only felt air, panicking instantly when he realized that his blow was ducked.

But time to be surprised he did not have, because before he knew it, Mister Nine was lurched forward from his shoulders and slammed by a vicious headbutt. Sending him tumbling to the ground like a ton of bricks.

"Huh, well how about that, you guys are bounty hunters. Well that sucks, guess you don't wanna be friends then."

Luffy took his gaze away from the unmoving orange haired man on the floor and instead brought it upon the blunette that was now frozen in place a few feet away.

"What's wrong?" The teen asked, craning his head to the side. "Aren't you gonna attack me?"

Now trembling, Miss Wednesday could hardly catch her breath as she spoke her next words. "Y-you dodged Mister Nine…"

The rubber man stared at her oddly. "Yeah, so?"

"He's… He's one of our fastest agents… Only Mister Two and Mister One are faster than him…"

Luffy picked his nose out of boredom. "Huh, really? That's weird, he looked pretty slow to me."

Gulping audibly, the blue haired women continued cautiously with her next question. "So uh… Do you even have a bounty?"

This question undoubtedly ignited something in the boy, because he was quickly growing a big sly grin on his childish face. "Yep! You bet! My bounty is thirty million!"

…

…

…

Yep, they fucked up…

"By the way," Luffy began again. "What's that spinning thing on your pinky? It looks really cool."

As if she was noticing her weapon in her hand for the first time today, Miss Wednesday jumped up with a small eep and quickly hid her hand behind her back. "Oh uh, don't worry about that, it's nothing…"

"Oh, ok… So uh, are you gonna attack me lady? Cause I really need to find my friends."

"No wait!" She pleaded, already rolling with a half baked plan. This was a long shot, but this boy seemed quite trusting from what she'd seen. Maybe she could take advantage of this. "Yes, we are bounty hunters, but we don't care about that right now. And even if we did, yours is way too big for us anyway. We usually just go for smaller pirates, but that's not why we're here."

"What?" Luffy asked innocently. "What do you mean? If you don't want my bounty, then why are you here? And what even is this place?"

Taking a deep breath, the blunette prepared herself to continue. She was gonna have to be pretty convincing to pull this off. Luckily she was already used to lying and flying under the radar in the first place. "Ok, listen closely. Right now, we're inside of a giant whale. We're in here by choice, but you must have gotten swallowed up by it on accident. Do you remember anything like that?"

And with that, it all clicked inside of Luffy's head.

"Ohhhhhhh! So that's what my gum gum balloon launched me into… Wait, I thought this was some kind of weird cave."

Miss Wednesday resisted the urge to facepalm, doing her best to keep her composure and cover intact.

"But wait, that doesn't explain what you two are doing here," The boy stated while scratching the back of his head.

"I was getting to that. My partner and I were sent here by our village to kill this whale from the inside. We're all on the brink of starvation, and this whale would be able to feed us for months, maybe even longer. So I'm sorry that my partner attacked you, he's just a fool sometimes, and when he heard you were a pirate he got desperate. Please, you must know how horrible it is to go without food, and it's not like hunting an animal is a crime right?"

…

…

…

Luffy stood across from her for a while, staring deeply into her eyes, looking for any sort of doubt or hesitation. He barely knew this girl, but for some reason, he felt like he could trust her.

"Alright, I understand… In that case, I'm gonna help you kill this whale. I hate being hungry more than anything, and this is easily the biggest fish I've ever seen in my life! I even thought it was a mountain!"

Miss Wednesday almost did a double take when she heard him. "Wait, what!? No! I can't ask you to do that, just let us go and we'll be fine. You don't even know me!"

Smiling even wider, the straw hat teen simply reached out his hand for her to take. "Well I don't know you yet, but that could change right now. What's your name?"

The blunette hesitated for a moment while she thought this through. On one hand, she didn't want to push her luck and try to bite off more than she could chew. But on the other hand, a high bounty pirate pirate was offering up his help to her. This was the perfect opportunity to not only kill the whale, but also collect that old man's enormous bounty… All she had to do was accept the boy's help and they were golden. Who cares if that grumpy old bastard sailed with the Pirate King, there was no way he would beat the three of them together, right?

Sighing one last time, she gave in, moving forward to take the boy's outstretched hand. "I'm Miss Wednesday, pleasure to meet you."

However, this answer didn't seem to satisfy the rubber man. His eyebrows knitting together in slight annoyance. "I don't want your official title, I want your real name."

Without thinking, Miss Wednesday rolled her eyes and responded. "Ugh, fine, It's Vivi."

A second later though, she covered her mouth with her hands as fast as she could. Was she stupid!? Why would she break character like that!? Not even Mister Nine knew her real name! Oh no, please don't recognize me!

Luffy only grinned warmly though, taking her open hand and completing the enthusiastic handshake. "Great to meet ya Vivi, I'm Monkey D. Luffy, the man who'll be King of the Pirates one day!"

"Oh… uh, wow, that's a big goal."

"Shishishishi, you bet! And I'm gonna be the one to do it."

She was about to ask more about the interesting topic until a muffled groan sounded off right at her feet. And after further inspection, she found her partner groan in pain from his spot on the floor as he drifted back off into unconsciousness. "Oh yeah… I guess we have to carry him…"

"Heh, no problem Vivi, I got him," Luffy insisted. Happily bending over and placing the man onto his back. "It's my fault that he's like this after all."

The blunette actually found herself smiling at how pleasant the boy's personality was. She never really ran into many kind people in her line of work, and she was especially light on good friends back in her kingdom. So this was quite refreshing in a way. "Well, alright. But only if you insist. It was him that attacked you in the first place, so it wasn't your fault Luffy."

"Eh, Forget about that," he waved off. "I already did, so you should too. We're friends now Vivi, so lead the way."

And so with a gulp, Vivi began making her way towards the stomach, many different thoughts bouncing around inside her head. Man, I really hope this works…

"So now what do we do!?" Usopp screeched as he ran around in panic on the deck of the Going Merry. Luffy was the entire reason he went on this journey in the first place, and without him around, there was some serious doubt setting in.

"What kind of a stupid question is that?" Zoro asked seriously. "We continue on into the Grand Line. Luffy would have wanted us to fulfill his dream, and I'm not about to let a fallen comrade's death go to waste after he sacrificed it for us."

"Woah woah! Wait! Why are we acting like Luffy's dead!? Aren't we gonna at least try to have some hope!?" Nami blurted out, still shaking from her place on the floor.

Sanji nodded his head silently while he inhaled smoke from his cigarette. "Nami's right, there's no reason to rule out him being alive yet. As much as I hate complimenting someone who's not a fine lady, Luffy is one tough bastard, so I wouldn't be too surprised if he's still crawling around inside that whale somewhere."

"Tch, then what the hell is the plan!? Wait for the whale to come back up and slice it up to find Luffy!?"

The whole crew slowly looked to Zoro like he was some sort of foreign creature.

"Did you just have a good Idea?" Usopp said, completely dumbfounded.

"Yeah, I'll be damned mosshead, that's not a bad plan. That way if Luffy really is dead we'll be avenging him either way."

"He's not dead you moron! Can you at least try to be positive!?" Nami narrowed her eyes.

Instantly turning apologetic, Sanji turned to the orange haired teen and bowed immediately. "I'm sorry my dear! It won't happen again! I'm sure our shitty captain is just fine in there!"

"Wait! Hold on," Zoro said, getting everyone's attention again. "Even if this plan of mine sounds good, I was just messing around. There's no way I could jump high enough to even get close to it. We're gonna have to think of something else… Maybe Usopp can shoot something at it?"

While Sanji and Usopp shook their heads in frustration at the swordsman's humble explanation. Nami had a light bulb go off inside her head as she remembered the landscape that they had just come from.

"That's it!" She exclaimed loudly. "Zoro, what if we turn around and dock right in front of Reverse Mountain? Do you think you could make the jump from on top of that cliff?"

Zoro focused his trained eyes to where the navigator was pointing and examined it closely. Sure enough, there was a good sized plateau right next to the giant waterfall they just came down. Hell, there was even a lighthouse there and everything. "Huh… Well I won't know until we're a bit closer, but it's definitely worth a shot. It's a hell of a lot higher than we are now, that's for sure."

"Alright! Let's go everyone! As your temporary captain, I'm ordering that we go dock on Reverse Mountain and save Luffy!" The long nosed teen said with gusto.

"What the hell? Who made you temporary captain!?" Sanji asked incredulously.

"Well who else would it be!? I am the bravest and strongest warrior among us! And the right hand man to our humble Captain Luffy!"

Nami rolled her eyes as she moved up the stairs and shoved Usopp off of the top deck. "Yeah right, keep dreaming Usopp. Zoro is Luffy's right hand man, but since his brain is smaller than a peanut, the left hand is gonna take over, and that's me."

"Oh wow Nami-swan! You're so cute when you take control!"

"Hold on! Left hand my ass! You betrayed us!" Zoro accused.

But Nami only winked innocently at him. "Yeah but that was just crappy circumstances. And I technically met Luffy before you, so it sucks to suck Zoro. Now raise the sails! We need to turn this ship around!"

"Grr, damn witch. You're lucky that dumbass trusts everyone he meets…"

"Oh wow, so this guy is really out to get you and your village?" Luffy questioned as his new friend continued to explain.

"Correct, he's old but very strong. The last time we came in here, he kicked us out and said that our village deserved to starve. He is truly ruthless and only wants to see us fall out of spite."

Shaking his head in disappointment, Luffy popped his knuckles. "Well don't you worry Vivi, as soon as I see this guy I'm gonna kick his ass. I hate people like that just as much as you do."

The blunette smiled to herself at her successful lie. This was actually gonna work. Now all they had to do was wait until Mister Nine woke up and they would easily win.

"Thank you Luffy, this really means a lot to me."

"No problem Vivi. Who knows, maybe after this you can join my crew! You sure are nice enough."

"Hehe, yeah maybe," she responded, deflecting the question. "C'mon, we're almost to the stomach."

"Right!" Luffy nodded innocently, following the girl like a loyal puppy. He loved making new friends.

Awww, poor Luffy, he's too kind sometimes, bless his heart. Anyways, like I said before, please feel free to PM me about any questions or concerns. I love interacting with you guys and would love to talk about anything you desire. And anytime someone asks a question in a review, I do my best to message them and respond as best as I can. But I can't do that with guests, so don't be shy, Pm me about anything ;)