So, this is embarrassingly late…ops?
Hope you enjoy…
It sadly didn't take long for the navy to start chasing us.
They began bombing us early in the morning and it was now nearing lunch time. There were at least three ships chasing after us with what looked like possibly more in the back. It was a little hard to count, what with all the water spray soaking us from the cannons missed shots.
Zoro took up one of the oars while Usopp and I manned the other. Chopper was reduced to rolling across the deck in his fluffy 'guard point' after using it to deflect some cannon balls. Sanji was inside, manning the rudder under Nami's loud directions. I think Robin was simply hiding inside so that the marines didn't associate her joining the crew.
Will was up on the crow's nest, using his Box Shield as best he could to cover as much of the ship as possible. Neal had taken to sitting perched on Nami's shoulder, his beak pointing true north for her to collaborate it against where the Log Pose was leading us to.
Luffy was being obnoxious, as always. Laying spread eagle on the deck with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Usopp tried to motivate him into helping us, but Luffy just whined about having not been able to eat anything since that morning. We'd only just managed to finish breakfast before the marine ships had started shooting their cannons at us.
Suddenly, one of the two closer ships that were trying to flank us exploded, quickly sinking below the waves.
It seemed to be friendly fire. How odd…
Nami wasted no time in directing us to use it to our advantage. With that ship sinking, it opened a hole in their formation that allowed us the chance to escape with our much smaller and therefore faster Caravel model ship.
We pulled into the next island among a large amount of sea stack rocks. Robin and Usopp had taken up binoculars to watch behind us, to ensure that the Navy hadn't followed us. Usopp was complaining about how hard the navy was pursuing us, to which Zoro calmly stated how it made sense, what with our crew having two sizable bounties as he sat down, leaning against the mast as he smirked at them.
Robin, who had a bounty of 79 million for the last twenty years.
And Luffy, with a bounty of 30 million. Though, I'd tried to tell them to expect it to go up after his defeat of Crocodile.
We hadn't received a News Coo Seagull since we left Alabastra, so if it did, we currently didn't know by how much. (yes, yes, later we learned that it went up to 100 million, more than doubling his previous amount...and that Zoro also now held a bounty of 60 million, that damn lucky bastard…)
Luffy took it upon himself to drape himself over the head of the ship's sheep head figurehead, not bothering to anchor himself to the ship lest he fall.
Nami called out to him, "Luffy...Watch yourself. It looks like there are lots of hidden reefs under the waves."
Luffy didn't respond other than to lazily lift his head up with an, "eh?"
Once we cleared the sea stacks, we were greeted with the sight of the island proper. The first thing about the island I noticed was the enormous lighthouse.
It was easily the tallest structure upon the island. It was surrounded with wooden scaffolds, showing that it was undergoing some kind of construction or repair work. The top of the tower was encased in a large beige cloth, tied shut with at least ten passes of rope around the glass dome. My guess was that they'd started installing the glass but hadn't finished the roof or something.
Chopper was the one to spot the harbor, with a youthful cry, startling Luffy into activity.
He sprung up and had twisted himself around with a huge smile.
Luffy was excited simply because a harbor meant there'd be a town with food. Good ol' Luffy, always thinking with his stomach…
As we docked, we were able to get a better look at the lighthouse, only to realize that it wasn't a lighthouse, but some gigantic tower.
We left Zoro on the ship to act as guard, napping up against the mast as was his usual pastime. His swords were laying on the deck besides him as she snored away.
As we set off however, we were stopped by a man decked out with a metal helmet, a gun, and purple, blue and dark maroon uniform.
"You there! Stop! On this island of Luluka, all ships that moor at our harbor, or even along our rocks, must pay harbor dues!"
Sadly for the poor guy, Luffy was just too damn hungry to wait for something as insignificant as "harbor dues".
The man had pointed his gun at us when Nami had smart mouthed him about having to pay money just to dock at the rocks of the island.
Sanji immediately stood in front of us all as I also grabbed my sword in preparation of the man opening fire on us. Turns out we didn't have to worry, due to Luffy.
Like I said, he didn't want to wait any longer for his fucking food.
He ran over not only the guard with the trigger happy gun, but also Sanji in his dash to town, shouting out, "FOOD! Food! Food! Food! Food! Food!" as he went.
Poor Sanji had a perfect foot shaped dirt print on the back of his head, and because his hair was such a bright yellow blonde, it showed clear as day. He pushed himself up to glare after our Captain, saying in a low growl, "that bastard…"
Robin asked if he was alright, and at her voice, Sanji seemed to be revived, for he was up and standing before us girls with both arms spread, to show he was okay, saying, "Yes! I'm completely fine!"
Nami was used to these kinds of things in regard to our crew, and easily glossed over the entire event by saying, "Come on, let's go. I want to get some blank charts to draw some maps."
I raised an eyebrow at her, but since I still had two more days to go before I was cleared by Chopper to begin speaking, kept my peace. It did make me wonder why she needed blank charts when she just got all that excellent and expensive paper though. I'll ask Will when we get back to the Merry later. He probably knows why they need blank charts.
Sanji was quick to call out with a large goofy smile on his face, "I'll accompany you, Nami-san!"
Chopper stuttered out, "I-I'm coming, too!"
With that, all three of them were off towards down with a light jog, leaving the rest of us standing over the mowed down guard.
Usopp had one hand raised after them, as he said, "-J-Just a minute! I'm coming, too! Me too!"
Before Robin and he could go more than two steps however, the five of us, (Robin, Usopp, myself, Will and Neal) were stopped again by a man who called out to us, "Hey! You guys!"
Looking up to the top of the cliff, we saw a short old man with a bristly mustache dressed in a white lab coat looking down at us. He had the most god-awful purple with pink geometric shapes button down shirt on under it with a MATCHING helmet. No joke.
His face was covered by a pair of specialized goggles and he had this huge pack strapped to his back, with a pipe and satellite scanner dish coming out of the pack.
Calmly he said, "there's something I need to ask you."
Robin asked curiously, "a new kind of clown?"
Usopp answered her, "he might be a swindling salesman."
Neal asked with a cock of his head, "like the last guy we found in the giant sea snail?"
I shook my head and mouthed, "lab coat with funky backpack, I'm guessing mad scientist." Will was kind enough to repeat my words for the others.
The man heard us apparently because he called down to us angrily, "I'm neither of those!"
Lifting up his goggles, we were able to see that he had a very small pointed nose and tired looking eyes, as he asked us, "have you seen a rainbow-colored mist?"
Robin gasped, showing she recognized whatever it was he was referring to, while Usopp asked, "huh? Rainbow-colored mist?"
At Usopp's clueless question he turned away, with a sad sigh, "ah, it's no use, he's an idiot." I scowled as I thought, that was rather harsh.
Usopp asked incredulously, "you're labeling me?"
I scoffed and crossed my arms to lean against Will, on the other shoulder than what Neal was perched on. Will took it like a man and didn't budge when my weight was added to him.
Usopp grew angry at that attitude from the man and after stepping closer to Robin, who he recognized as a stronger fighter than him, he showed off his impressive East Blue shark teeth as he yelled up to the man, "Hey, just a minute! What kind of attitude is that, after asking me a question?!"
Robin stopped him with a wave of her hand, as she politely asked the old man, "I wonder if you might tell me about it."
After looking down to Robin for a minute, likely to judge whether she was genuine in her interest, or not, he sighed and said to follow him into town and that we could talk over lunch.
With nothing better to do, Will, Neal and I followed along.
The restaurant the old man led us to was right off the docks, practically within spitting distance (if you were Luffy that distance can be quite far, let me assure you) from the water itself.
He introduced himself as Henzo, and we were all happily surprised to see that the restaurant he led us to was the same one that Luffy was STILL eating at as he called for another round.
We all ordered the house special, which was some long noodle pasta dish. I asked for mine to have an alfredo-based sauce instead of the heavy cheese based one that everyone else was digging into. I like cheese just fine, but I've always been picky about it as a sause.
The server suddenly turned to Henzo and asked rudely, "Hey, you've got money for this, right?"
Henzo casually pointed to Usopp besides him and said, "oh, he's paying."
Usopp's East Blue Shark Teeth made another appearance as he jerked his thumb towards himself as he said, "Whoa, I AM?!"
Henzo, not even missing a beat, said, "I'm telling you the secrets of the Rainbow Mist. of course, you are."
Somehow, Usopp's jaw dropped down almost a foot from his face, yelling, "I'm not the one who asked you!" at the old man, and I had to internally marvel if Luffy was somehow able to affect the rest of us with his rubberiness when we were all extremely pissed off because I'd seen Nami and Zoro's mouths do that same thing when they yelled at him. I shuddered to think what I would look like if my jaw did that.
I quickly wrote down on my notepad,
I'll pay for Will and Neal along with myself, so if you could cover Luffy's bill too Usopp, I'll ask Sanji to make your choice in dinner for the whole weekend?
Henzo ignored Usopp's outburst and Usopp just sighed when he read my note, quickly pulling out his money pouch to count out if he had enough to accept that deal or not.
Henzo formally introduced himself, (Luffy hadn't been with us when he'd said what his name was on the way to the restaurant) saying, "My name is Henzo. I'm a genius, repeat, genius scientist, researching the Rainbow Mist." poor guy...must encounter a lot of skepticism about his intelligence if he's gotta make it such a point as to include it in his introduction like that, I thought as he went on.
Usopp, still feeling miffed at being forced to cover the old man's lunch fee, snarked out, "you can't call yourself a genius. Anyone who calls themselves that is no honest fellow."
I threw him a quick glare, to say 'knock it off', or 'don't be rude', but he ignored me to listen to Henzo's tale. Will quietly huffed at Usopp, "like your one to talk."
Robin butted in before the two could start arguing by starting her question off with, "Mister Henzo…" but was interrupted by Henzo, who corrected her saying, "Call me 'Professor' when you address me."
Robin, smooth as could be, corrected herself as she continued asking him, "Professor, do you know this book?" as she slid her red book she'd been reading since joining the crew, titled, "The Rainbow Mist, volume VIII" across the table.
His eyes went wide as he asked, "is that…?"
He quickly, almost rudely, snatched it up to inspect the book as Robin explained how she'd come across the book originally in Alabastra. I was just finishing my last bite of food as she went on to explain how the book was written over forty years ago by a man that claimed to have not only gone into the Rainbow Mist, but had managed to come back alive as well. He described it as the garden of the gods or perhaps as El Dorado. And being recorded as the entrance to the City of Gold.
Raising my eyebrows, I glanced at Will and smirked as I saw his intense face.
The tales of El Dorado were one of Will and Crystal's favorites to use in their childish games when playing pretend pirates.
Henzo snapped the book closed to refute it as nothing more than a legend, with many adventures being enticed by the legend only to lose their lives once they set off on their journey to find the Rainbow Mist. That not even a single one had ever returned.
Including his own friends.
I swallowed harshly and started coughing. Will pounded on my back, helping to clear my airway, and once I could breathe, I drank my full glass of water to help sooth my throat.
Usopp no longer was pissed with Henzo, as he said, "So that's why you're researching the mist," as the server brought out another large plate of the pasta, only this time it was mixed with various vegetables, such as peas and carrots for Luffy. He was on his fourth helping since we'd gotten here, mind you.
The server advised us not to take what Henzo had to say at face value.
"How do you mean?" Usopp asked, curiously.
While glaring down at Henzo, who'd slumped over the book Robin had passed over to him, the server explained, "he's one of Mayor Wetton's dogs."
Luffy said, "dogs?" while Neal "fake" parroted out, "Mayor Wetton"?
The guy in the table behind Luffy's seat, dressed in an orange sweater, said, "Yeah! He receives research funding from the mayor and lives the easy life! He's a flimflam scientist!"
I glared at the man and clenched my fist around my fork. I hated when other people name-called people when they don't really know the person on a personal level.
Will grabbed my fist to keep me from doing anything rash, and I took a deep breath in an effort to calm myself.
Suddenly there was the sound of a large drum booming out from the street and everyone in the restaurant began to scarf down their drink and food like it was a sudden food eating contest. One man helpfully called out what the drumming meant.
"T-The tax collection squad! The tax collection squad is here!"
Luffy tried asking what was going on, but everyone was too busy encouraging each other to eat and drink all of their food on their plates. Thankfully we were all finished with our food besides Luffy's rounds of fourths.
Some people were going so far as to shove the food into their mouths with their hands in an effort to eat faster. Ewww….
The door to the restaurant opened and everyone froze as we were greeted with the sight of a man dressed in a more 'officer' uniform similar to the guard we had encountered back near our ship. He was a redhead, but not as brightly orange as Nami's hair. His eyebrows were so bushy that they looked sort of like wings trying to fly up over the top of his small rectangular glasses. He had a thin, long mustache over his smirking face as he said, "well, well, good citizens, are you having an enjoyable mealtime?"
Walking in with his hands placed at his lower back in a military rest position, he turned to the first man who was still holding up a mug of alcohol and asked, "you there, you're drinking some delicious liquor, yes? When you drink liquor, you need to pay the liquor-drinking tax, right?"
Two of the guards that had followed along behind the officer man came up behind the poor sap that hadn't finished his drink and grabbed him by the arms. At their touch, the man shouted out, "H-H-Hey, wait a minute! A-All I've got in my wallet is my wife and kid's living expenses!"
One of the two guards held the man from behind while the other searched him for his wallet, bringing it over to the officer once he'd found it. The officer said with a smirk as he held aloft the man's wallet, "it is a citizen's obligation to pay taxes. Those who neglect their obligations have no right to live in this town."
Usopp asked quietly, "who is this guy?"
The server, who was still standing behind Usopp's chair leaned down and answered just as quietly, voice grave, "Mayor Wetton's son, Flip. A disagreeable bastard, who extorts all sorts of tax money out of us."
Flip must have heard something, because he turned around to our table with a scowl, but then smiled as he caught sight of who was sitting with us and said, "well, well, Professor Henzo...Father was looking for you. He was wondering how your Mist research is coming."
Henzo's voice was dry as he answered, "Same as always. There's no telling when or where the mist is going to appear, after all."
With a small frown, Flip replied, "my, my. Your research is supported by the citizens' tax money. The Rainbow Tower over there was constructed based on your research. Do not forget that the slower your research goes, the more it puts everyone here out. Well, I will see you later." with that said, he turned to leave.
Will's grip on my arm tightened and he discreetly reached over with his other arm to wrap around my shoulder, further grounding me in place as I internally snarled, That fucking bastard! He's shifting everyone here's hatred of him and his dad's tax tyranny onto Old Man Henzo! MotherFucker!
He was halfway to the door, when he suddenly turned back to our table saying, "well, well...you there, you're eating a heaping plate of spaghetti, yes?" after a quick look, and yep he was talking about Luffy, how the fuck does he call THAT spaghetti? Can't he see the fucking carrots and peas? Plus, there's no red sauce at all! What is he so blind that even with the glasses he can't see them? I thought as my glare intensified, Will's grip on me near bruising.
Luffy just mumbled out around another huge bite, "mm-hmm, I was hungry!"
Flip gave a cruel smile as he informed us, "eating a heaping plate means that you must pay a heaping tax, right?"
Luffy just smiled and pointed at Usopp, saying, "he's paying."
Usopp's E.B shark teeth came out as he asked, "I am?! I haven't agreed to Wisp's deal yet!"
Either way, he ended up paying since Luffy didn't have any money with him. We left soon after the soldiers and Flip did, Usopp lamenting how that tax had completely wiped his wallet out, going so far as to shake it upside down to prove his point. He was unappreciative of Luffy's bowed head of thanks, telling Luffy to 'cram it!'
The server came out behind Robin, who was last to leave the restaurant, saying, "Now you understand. If you don't want the people in town to think ill of you, then stop hanging around with Henzo."
I lunged at him, fist raised to punch him in the center of his gut, the guy was so damn tall that I wouldn't have been able to hit his motherfucking mouth even if I'd wanted to. Fucking giant assed pissant! How dare he and the other islanders condemn this one old man for the Mayor's harsh treatment of them!
I was stopped by Will as Robin said, "thanks for the warning. But that's not up to me to decide. It's up to the captain."
Seeing how he was angled away from me, he hadn't noticed my assault attempt, nor Will's swift rescue. When he did turn around and saw me practically going rabid in anger and attempting to lunge for him again, only to be denied by my larger younger brother, he flinched and left us with a contemptuous, "humph."
As we all followed after Henzo down the street, Usopp complained about the mayor and his over taxation of the people. Will, Neal and I were walking behind him and Luffy who were following behind Henzo.
Henzo apologized to us quietly, stopping Usopp's rant in its tracks.
"What are you apologizing for, Pops?" Luffy asked, not taking his hands down from where they'd been resting against the back of his head as we'd been walking.
Henzo was in front of us all, so we couldn't see his face as he looked down at the ground. At Luffy's question, Usopp rounded on Luffy, saying, "didn't you listen to what those guys were saying?"
Turning to Usopp, Luffy admitted, "nope, not a bit."
I smirked as I thought, he was probably too busy thinking about food to pay attention.
Usopp seemed to have a way of explaining the things that, while making sense to the rest of us, almost never made any sense to poor Luffy. He managed to dumb it down enough for Luffy to comprehend what was being said. With Luffy, you have to make it simple, and short. He doesn't have a long attention span for most things, and he never seems to understand the longer more complicated way of saying words. Or tact. I respect Luffy greatly, but god does the boy have zero sense of tact.
"All right, Pops here is in league with those rip-off artists. Everyone's money is being wasted, on account of his weird research. Do you really understand what's going on?"
Luffy still wasn't following, which was fine since I'd managed to get away from my brother's grip this time to punch Usopp over the head.
Turning on me he cried out, "what was that for!" only to cower under my glare.
Harshly I wrote out,
We don't know the whole story! He said his own friends disappeared in that mist! Did you even stop to consider that MAYBE he's been desperately looking for a way to rescue them from the mist?! Don't just blindly accept whatever piece of bullshit you hear! Especially coming from the guy that "ripped you off" in the first place! Can't you tell when an asshat is trying to shift blame and hatred off of himself?!
Usopp paled a little after reading my note. Silently of course. I don't think I'd ever heard Usopp say half the shit that I do. We were stopped from discussing his prejudice issues by a loud commotion going on down the road, as a group of villagers started running, shouting out, "It's a ship! A galleon is arriving in the harbor!"
Henzo muttered to himself, "-I-It couldn't be…!" before taking off as fast as his short old legs could carry him in the direction that everyone was running. Luffy laughed and holding his hat to his head with one hand, took off after him with a shout, "Sounds interesting! Let's go see!"
Usopp futilely tried to stop him, saying "Hey, wait, Luffy!"
But like I said, it was futile. Luffy either didn't hear him, or flat out ignored him and continued running. Luffy and Henzo made it to the front of the crowd of people long before the rest of us and managed to squeeze themselves to standing in the very front of the line of people, not even bothering to say 'excuse me' as they did so.
We managed to make our way behind them fairly easily thanks to Henzo's weird backpack taking up so much space behind him as he passed through the crowd.
Luffy said loudly, "ooh, it's huge!"
And indeed, it was.
The ship was massive, making 'huge' be an understatement. If we hadn't seen just how truly massive a real-life giant was, I'd almost guess that this ship was intended for giants, given how large it was.
It was a deep red, with blue trimming. The figurehead was larger than the Going Merry was, shaped like a massive bull head, complete with the iconic bullnose golden ring. There were six horns going out from the sides, and tops of the head, three on each side. Its eyes were painted a solid evil looking green. There were four masts, with only two of them on the deck proper, while the other two were small and towards the back.
The jolly roger on the sails was very unoriginal in that it was simply a picture of their figurehead over the crossed bones in the background. I seriously hope they didn't emulate the horns on the jolly roger for their hairstyle...god, please no!
It showed massive signs of damage along the hull, and the rudder seemed to not be steering, as several of the small sailing and fishing boats had to move out of its way as it slowly drifted into the harbor.
Robin remarked on how the ship was an old ship, which I was curious to know how she could tell that, but Henzo spoke up quietly, saying that the ship was named the "Talielisin."
Usopp tried to pronounce that name, but before he could get past the first syllable, Henzo was running for the pier. Unveiling some strange paddle boat that could be used on land with wheels that retract into itself and changed out with an inflatable ring, thus converting into a small paddle boat.
Luffy had stars in his eyes and was going on and on about how cool that was, and how much he wanted one for himself. I didn't have the heart to try to explain how much one of those would cost to commission.
Luffy had been quick to fetch the Going Merry along with Robin and Usopp, Zoro didn't even wake up at us moving the ship.
Jerking my head at Zoro, I mouthed to Will, "Some "guard" he makes…."
Will just chuckled and nodded but helped Luffy nonetheless in moving the Going merry up alongside the massive galleon. With a stretch of his arms, he was up along the railing to the unknown ship and talking with Henzo. He was trying to demand that Henzo give him his small paddle boat, but Henzo was too stuck on the fact that Luffy had eaten a Devil Fruit to pay any mind about his paddle boat.
Once over his shock, Henzo was sad to inform us that he couldn't give us the machine, what he called the "H-1" due to it being part of his life's work. Luffy was still trying to use his cajoling tone of voice in talking him into it, but he was having none of it.
We all looked around the ship and were shocked to see that it looked like it had just had people aboard. There were dishes partially washed in the sink, food still left out on the table, half eaten, even a pot left on the stove with the stove on!
Yet there wasn't a single person on the ship, which Henzo said had gone adrift 50 years ago! Even Robin was having a hard time believing that fact, to which she stated.
Before Henzo could answer Usopp's question of what he meant by the fact that the ship was exactly the same as it was 'back then' his satellite dish on the top of his backpack started to beep and swivel about, creating a terrible racket as it did so.
Henzo said that he'd never had a reading from his machine that was so strong before. Grabbing it up from where he'd set it down, we all raced outside after him. From the deck, we got a front row view of a strange fog bank coming in from the sea.
I say strange because it was. It had pink, green, blue, yellow, and orange tones along with flashes of bright white light throughout the fog. All blending together into other colors wherever the different colors touched.
Usopp rhetorically said, "So that's the Rainbow Mist, huh?"
Henzo banged his right-handed fist against the railing, saying to himself, "Damn, I can't go out into the open sea in the H-1! What do I do?" he looked around as if the answer would just be floating there, when he said, "Oh! I know!"
Before we could blink, he'd jumped ship and had furled the Going Merry's sail, calling out, "I'm borrowing this!"
As if that made things okay! What the fuck is Zoro doing, just sleeping there as the Merry gets stolen while he's aboard!? I thought incredulously.
We all hopped off the galleon to land on the deck of the Merry next to Henzo as Usopp said angrily, "if you wanted to go so bad, why didn't you just use the galleon!?"
Henzo looked down at the deck of the Going Merry as he said, "The Talielisin's helm is still broken, by Wetton's hand."
Wetton? But isn't that the name of this town's mayor?
Usopp and Luffy were almost up in his face as they asked, "W-What do you mean, Pops? How do you know that?"
"Because 50 years ago, I was aboard the Talielisin."
Looking ahead of us, we saw that we were drawing ever closer to the Mist, and Usopp, standing on the left side of the figurehead asked us in a broken stutter, if we were really going into the mist that many adventures had gone into but where none had ever returned from. He was so obviously scared yet trying to look like he was fine either way that it was sad.
Robin and Henzo stood on the other side of the figure head, where Luffy was sitting alone, as he gazed into the Mist, a smile across his face at the idea of an adventure.
Will and I were standing behind the group and had a perfect view of everyone. I tried not to look like I was standing in front of the vulnerable swordsman behind me, who was STILL snoring away without a care in the world.
Henzo just said calmly, "We're going in. this is the reason why I've kept up my research through today."
I glared over at him and cleared my throat, making Luffy and the others look at me, I raised my eyebrows at Luffy, maintaining eye contact and he laughed, rubbing the back of his head. Good, he got my silent message that that was something for LUFFY to decide as the Captain of our ship. And NOT Henzo who'd tried to hijack it…. I thought as Luffy pointed towards the mist and said, "Alright! I'm the Captain and I say we go in!"
Robin smiled at Usopp and asked if he was scared.
Usopp still stuttered but denied the mere possibility of him, a brave warrior of the sea that travels all over the Grand Line, as ever possibly being 'scared'.
Going so far as to address himself as "Captain Usopp."
I held up a notepad that said,
If you really were the "captain" I'd be organizing a mutiny within the hour…
Will laughed but didn't deny that he'd probably be first to join me in my cause. I had a sneaky suspicion that Sanji and Zoro would join me as well.
Usopp slumped over in depression at my attempt at a joke, while Luffy just cackled out his unique "shihihihihi" laugh before turning forwards again and said loudly, drawing our attention, "We're charging into the Rainbow Mist!"
The next second we were surrounded by a pale purple mist, and then these bright flashing and swirling white lights flew past us as we sailed further inside. Will stood there beside me, arms crossed stoically, but I could see that his muscles were tense, prepared to leap into our defense if need be.
I crouched over Zoro, who was still snoring against the railing, while Usopp cowered down and covered his head. Robin and Henzo just looked on curiously while Luffy was slack jawed in amazement.
When we came out of the purple mist, we were met with a dark sky, no sign of the sun, yet it was still bright enough to see around us.
The sight that met our eyes was a ship's graveyard.
Robin asked, "Professor, where are we?"
"Ape's Concert."
"What?! Ape's Concert? It couldn't be…" She said breathlessly as she then turned to look more closely at the surrounding broken ships.
Usopp asked, "W-What's that?!"
Robin explained seriously, "A Ship Graveyard, where once you enter, you can never get out."
Luffy and Usopp both yelled, "W-What?!"
I rolled my eye as I thought to myself, we were literally just saying that about the Rainbow Mist, and Luffy was all excited for the adventure, but now that we're actually here and he learns it's just a simple ships graveyard that you can never leave, he's all "what?!" Seriously Luffy? Oh...never mind…
Luffy then turned to look out over the broken ships and said with a huge D shaped smile, "Awesome! Look there's nothing but broken ships all around us! We should look for pirates' treasure! Shihihihihihihihihihi"
We spread out over the different ships that were next to us, and tried searching for treasure, but all around us there were only busted, rotten ships that were breaking the moment we stepped on them.
Will took to riding on Neal's back so as to avoid accidently breaking something so badly that he fell into the sea. Not that it would kill him, since he could still use his gills to breathe, but it would still suck to be immobilized at the seabed while he waited for me to swim down and haul his ass up out of the water.
Usopp was freaking out over the atmosphere of the place. Making up tales about a ghost captain that would come out of the woodwork to haunt us.
Personally, I thought he was just working himself up and getting scared over nothing. Ghosts, real ghosts that is, were not real. That would imply the validity of humans having an immortal soul that transcended past our death of our fleshly bodies. Something I was a firm believer in as being unreal.
Luffy laughed at the idea of a ghost captain though, probably thinks it would be cool and would try to summon the ghost of the late pirate king or something equally stupid…
He succeeded in freaking out the sniper by shouting out a calling for this imaginary ghost, saying, "Ghost Captain!"
It made tears gush down Usopp's face as he used his E.B shark teeth to tell Luffy, "Don't call to them!"
Robin, meanwhile, was reading apart from her book about this place, saying, "Beyond the Rainbow Mist, is the world of the eternal. The final paradise remaining on earth. It's filled with treasures of gold and silver, where people live forever without aging or going hungry. That's what's written in this book."
Henzo wasn't really paying any mind to Luffy and Usopp's antics, instead refuting Robin by saying, "I told you, that's nothing more than a legend."
Turning to him, she asked, "Professor, you knew that this place was a ship graveyard?"
He nodded, as he explained, "yeah, 50 years ago, I got a short glimpse of this place."
Standing beside them, I listened as Robin asked the question I'd thought of, "If you knew it, then why come?"
"I told you that too. I've been carrying on my research in order to rescue my friends that were swallowed up in this mist. I even became Wetton's dog, and put up with the finger-pointing, to that end."
I nodded, glad to feel vindicated in that he wasn't a bad guy, he just simply wanted to rescue his friends. What faith he has that they have managed to survive all this time...or that if this place really is ageless, to have the faith to keep going, despite the fact that he's now an old man while they'd be a bunch of kids…
Soon, Luffy and Usopp came back with a large chest filled to the brim with money, gems, gold and other valuable things.
Henzo asked what it was, even though it was fairly obvious to me…
"Isn't it awesome? There's lots, lots more inside the ship! I'm gonna go explore some more!" Luffy joyfully proclaimed as he then sung back to another ship. I smiled and asked Will, who lighted down besides the tipped over chest,
Were you able to fill up your storage boxes with the rest of the treasure that Luffy mentioned? If so, don't let it on to Nami how much you actually have...she'd likely try to claim it for herself, and not as the crew's funds.
He laughed and said, "yeah I know. Don't worry, I already mentioned to Luffy that I'd hold all the gold he wanted to be used for the crew as a whole. He didn't have a problem with that."
He shook his head and asked me bemused, "Is he always this trusting of the crew? Anyone else would have doubted at least for a second about my taking the gold. With my devil fruit, no one would be able to steal it from me unless I allowed it to be...so…"
I knew what he meant.
I nodded, and wrote,
Yeah, at least for as long as I've known everyone here. It's one of the qualities about him that attract people to him I think. His ability to trust and see the good in everyone is amazing. It makes me feel like being able to be the best version of myself that I can, you know?
Will nodded with a smile, and said, "well if we're going to be rich pirates, now would be the time to plunder these broken ships. I'll unload two of my boxes here on the ship and then head back out to gather up more. That way, even Nami can't complain!" I silently laughed at that.
Behind us, I could hear Robin talking to Henzo, saying "whether this is a paradise or not, the 'being filled with treasure' thing doesn't appear to be altogether untrue, huh, Professor?""
He merely folded his arms and closed his eyes in thought.
It was two minutes later that we all started hearing this strange bell chimes going off.
Looking around, we were surprised to see shapes moving in the distance, as a young male voice called out, "Those who would disturb the rest of the dead…"
Usopp, the scaredy cat, fell to his ass and asked, "W-What's that?!"
The voice continued, saying, "leave the cargo, and depart at once, or else the curse of the dead shall befall you!"
At that, I frowned as I crossed my arms.
Usopp was muttering how scared he was, while Luffy hopped back up to our railing, placing his hat back up onto his head and asked, "who's there?"
I smirked, glad to see that I wasn't the only one who wasn't fooled by this false act of spiritism.
Another bell chime called out across the mist, and three floating white shapes drifted out across the deck of the ship that Luffy and Usopp were currently standing on. From my left I heard Neal squawk loudly and crash into the ship with what looked like a fishing line wrapped up around his wings and another of those damn floating white sacks wrapped up around Will, who was sitting on Neal's back.
Will was cursing up a storm as he discovered that he couldn't move his arms to free himself or Neal with the fishing wire entangling them so. Concerned I rushed over to them, pulling out my sword as I did so. Once I got close I stomped on the deck, gaining their attention. When Neal saw the sword in my hand, he stilled, making Will look up at me as well. Seeing Father's sword in my hand, Will smiled.
Around us, the voice said, "Now, hand over the cargo, nice and easy, or else…" I smiled a grim smile and struck my blade.
With just three slashes, I had them freed of the wire, and got a close look at what those floating "ghosts" were.
I could hear Usopp freaking out behind us over them, and I was curious about what they REALLY were…but before I could reach out and pick up the material of the "ghost", an arrow shot out and embedded itself in the railing. It was barely four inches above Zoro's unprotected head!
MOTHER FUCKERS! THAT WAS TOO FUCKING CLOSE TO BE USED AS A FUCKING THREAT! WHAT IF THEY HAD MISSED?!
Luffy shared my thoughts, as he glared at the arrow, and then back to the "ghosts" saying, "that was close! You rotten…" he stretched his arm up to grab the cross beam to a broken mast and launched himself over to the floating figures while finishing his insult, "Ghost Captain!"
He ended up clothes lining the lot of them with the torn sail of the mast he'd used to sling himself over there. Doing so showed that the figures were empty, further spooking Usopp into believing that they were real ghosts.
Robin was smart enough to point out which ship the arrow had come from, and I dashed over to see if I could apprehend the little shit who'd fired an arrow at our sleeping crewmate.
Usopp tried to warn Luffy with a megaphone, but he was too engrossed in discovering the wire and I was too far away to stop the second arrow that was headed straight for Luffy's head.
Thank god for Robin's devil fruit! She grew an arm out of Luffy's shoulder joint to catch the arrow straight from the air, saving him from a sudden end.
Not missing a beat, Luffy pulled the wire that led to the crow's nest above him, telling whoever was up there to get down on his level. I made it just in time to stand before a... prepubescent boy?
At the sight of me, he screamed and fell to his ass, the crossbow he'd been using to shoot the arrows clattered to the ground besides him. I quickly swiped it and tossed it behind me. Don't need him trying to shoot me too, I thought as he scooted back away from me.
I heard another boy yelling outside with the sound ropes make when swinging from the mast. Vaguely, I heard Usopp shout out his attack name for his Fire Star, he called out his attacks to warn any of us in the area of what ammo he was using. He told me it had become a habit from when he used to practice at home with a group of much younger boys on his home island. It made sense, by telling the kids what ammo he was using, they'd know when to duck for cover or when to just ignore the normal iron pellets.
The boy in front of me gasped out, "Akibi!" when there was another surprised yell followed by a splash.
As his eyes went wide, he darted over to the window that he'd been using to shoot out of. I let him get a look, knowing I'd want to check on my friend's wellbeing if I was in his position. The crew wouldn't hurt a bunch of random kids, even if they did shoot a couple arrows at us, I thought as I grabbed him by the back of the shirt when he tried to jump out of the window and hauled him back into the room, again to land on his ass.
I raised my eyebrow and he glared at me as he cowered back. We heard two more young voices yell out, "Akibi!" with the second voice being a girl's as she said, "Wait, Rongo!"
I smirked as the boy in front of me became visibly more and more tense, awe, how cute. The kid probably thinks we're the standard bastard type of pirates…
I got distracted for a split second as I heard Luffy shout, "Gum Gum! I'm home!" because for a millisecond I'd worried that he was gonna try to bop the kids out there on the head or something. With Luffy's strength, there was an actual concern for brain damage if he hits too hard, and these brats are just that...brats.
The kid in front of me didn't waste that millisecond and was already half way across the damn room by the time my eyes flicked back to him. Internally I cursed as I chased after the snot nosed brat, but hearing another boy's voice calling out, "That's enough!" made me stop to check on my crewmates outside.
There was a boy dressed in a red shirt with black stripes and a brown sleeveless vest over top and a sandy mop of curly hair. He had thick lips and was a nice light olive brown skin toned. He was holding aloft what looked like a round metal object, that from my distance and angle away, appeared to be a, FUCK IS THAT A GRANADE?! LUFFY! ZORO!
I jumped out of my window and landed on the deck of the ship I'd been inside of, just two boats away from the suicidal kid, and three boats away from my crew, damn it! I'm too far away to do SHIT if he goes through with that threat! Fuck!
The boy proudly and without fear yelled down, "We are the Pumpkin Pirates, and Ape's Concert is our territory! Release my friends, and turn over the cargo, if you want to live!"
I dashed forwards, trying to hurry yet keep my presence undetected. So far the kid hadn't seen or heard me when I left the interior of the ship, and if I was gonna be any use to my crew, I had to get there before he did so.
I heard Luffy ask himself in surprise, "a bomb?"
While a young girl, the one I heard earlier then, call out the kamikaze kid's name, "Rapa Nui!" she was on the deck of the Going Merry, along with another boy who was standing besides Luffy at the rail, and the third boy's voice I spotted reading water on the same side as Luffy and the boy.
Henzo reacted to the boy's name, staring over at him with wide, shocked eyes as he said, "could it be…?"
Usopp, ever the scaredy cat, tried to reason with Rapa Nui, calling up to him, "Hey, now, if you use that, you'll blow us ALL up!"
This didn't detour the boy however, as he said, "We're all in the same boat! We live, and die, together!"
After finishing his grand little "speech" he leapt off the red railing of the ship he was standing on to land onto the deck of the Going Merry, walking forwards with the bomb held out in front of him as a warning to us to back off.
I was almost to the Going Merry. Just three more moves and I'd be back on deck with the others. I saw Robin's eyes flicked my way, and I knew she'd spotted me. I nodded to let her know I'd acknowledged her, and she tilted her head in Luffy's direction. I furrowed my brows, trying to figure out what she was trying to say to me with that. I didn't know her well enough yet to decipher such minute facial tics, damn it!
If I tried to do something now, and she was expecting me to do something else, it could get us all killed by that shithead Rapa Nui's grenade! Fuck!
When Rapa Nui reached his female friend's side, he said, "Let's go."
She apologized to him for needing to be rescued, before calling out to the boy standing at the rail by Luffy, who was apparently named Rongo.
Rongo ran over to them, as Henzo asked, "Rapa Nui…? Is that you, Rapa Nui?"
I stilled, realizing that with Henzo speaking to these kids like he knew them, that they must only be one group of people. His missing friends from fifty years ago! Henzo continued to name off his friends, making me more and more sure that my hunch was correct.
"And...Isoka, and Rongo… It's you all right…Don't you know me? It's me, Henzo! We always used to play together, on Cape Luluka!"
That finally drew a response from the Rapa Nui boy. He asked incredulously, "Henzo?!"
Luffy hadn't put it together that these children were the ones Henzo was looking for all this time as he asked Henzo, "You know them?"
Henzo approached the children as the girl, who I now know to be named Isoka, asked, "Henzo? You don't mean that Henzo!?"
Rapa Nui looked disbelieving as he said to her without looking away from Henzo, "You idiot, there's no way…"
When Henzo drew too close for their personal comfort, Rapa Nui yelled, "Stay back! I-I'll blow us up! Stay back, I said! S-Stop!"
Henzo, still not saying a word, didn't stop and went to press the trigger on the bomb, right as I landed on the railing behind Rapa Nui, sword drawn and prepared to use the flat of my blade to swing the bomb out and away from the ship if need be.
As soon as Henzo pressed the button, I was forced to close my eyes due to the bright flashing light, Shit! I can't see!
Once I could see, just a few seconds had passed and there hadn't been any 'explosion', I was met with the sight of the bomb having been a dud, one that Henzo called the, "Kaboom Mark III, a personal invention of his that was only used for bluffing. Thank god he knew they were using his old invention and not a real damn bomb!
Rapa Nui didn't take being made a fool of very well, for he used a smoke bomb to attempt for them all to escape. I may have lived with the living embodiment of "smoke" for the last seven years, but that doesn't mean I can see through the shit.
They got away and I was slightly annoyed to see that only NOW was Zoro waking up. He asked what all the commotion was about, and then asked who the "old guy" was. Opps...he slept through EVERYTHING...some ship guard he is…
Usopp said to Zoro, "Well, it would take a bit of time to explain it to you…"
Luffy was the one to point out that the kid in the water had disappeared as well, while asking who the kids where.
Henzo went on to regale us with the story of how his group of friends used to play at their own "secret base" and cliff dive off the sea stack that their base was built inside of.
They all had dreams of growing up to be real pirates, despite Rapa Nui's father being a Marine. How Henzo had been too scared of being to weak to join in with them as one of the crew members, but Rapa Nui always used to reassure him that he was needed to invent all their cool gadgets and other such tools.
How one fateful, dreadfully event, it was the day he had perfected the Kaboom Mark III. They'd been sleeping over at their secret base; they'd seen signs of the town being on fire the next morning. They'd rushed to town and had seen a gigantic pirate ship. It was the Talielisin, filled with the pirates under the command of Captain Wetton.
Rongo had led the charge into town, crying for his parents, something they never did find out the fate of.
The Wetton Pirates were ruthless, he had attacked the kids, while Rapa Nui told all of them to run for the harbor where they would take one of the ships to safety. The problem was, there was no other ship besides the Talielisin to take since the pirates had sunk all of the other ships. Wetton had followed them, enraged that they were attempting to take his ship, and had thrown his axe at them. They had thought that they had gotten rid of him when they cut the rope ladder, but he had managed to climb up anyway.
Rapa Nui and the boy in the green jacket had managed to knock him down for a moment, but they were children up against Grand Line level pirates. They didn't stand a chance realistically.
Rapa Nui had tried to take Wetton's battle axe, but the massive weapon was far too heavy for the boy to lift. Wetton had stepped on the handle, stopping the boy, who proudly declared to being the leader of the Pumpkin Pirates. The boy in the green jacket had said that since there was only one of them, that they should help Rapa Nui out and defeat the lone pirate.
He had only gone about five steps away from the others when a lackey had walked out of the ship, asking the captain in a sleepy voice if they were leaving already.
The captain had used the distract to almost kill Rapa Nui, throwing his axe after the fleeing boy, thus destroying the wheel that controlled the rudder.
It was then that everyone discovered they were about to sail directly into the Rainbow Mist. Wetton, who'd grabbed Akibi was forced to swiftly release him when Akibi bit him on the arm (Akibi was the boy in the green jacket). Rapa Nui had then attacked Wetton, forcing him to nearly fall overboard and denying him the chance to further injure Akibi. When he'd initially grabbed Akibi, he'd dislocated the poor boy's shoulder.
Rapa Nui was so distracted in checking on his hurt friend, he didn't immediately notice that his attack had not fully pushed Wetton overboard like he'd initially thought. Henzo had bravely tackled Wetton, dropping several of his Kaboom Mark series bombs on the deck at the same time. Henzo had told them that he'd follow, as he was a member of the Pumpkin Pirates. The children had had no other choice but to fully sail into the mist.
At the end of Henzo's tale, Usopp was quick to ask, "yeah, but that happened 50 years ago, right? They were still just little kids then."
Henzo throughout the theory, "the passage of time within the Rainbow Mist appears to be different. One day in here might be equivalent to a week, or even a year, in the outside world."
I scoffed, and rolled my eyes as I thought, no shit, dipstick, even I could have told you that just from looking at the damn brats.
Usopp was amazed as he said, "W-What?!"
Robin ignored him, as she said to Henzo, "If that's true, we have to find a way out of here fast, or there'll be no undoing the damage."
Luffy asked Robin, "Why not?"
Usopp grew annoyed at Luffy, saying, "You are so dense! The same thing that happened between those kids earlier and the old man could happen to us, too! While we're in here, puttering around, Nami and the others we left behind will become old men and women!"
Luffy freaked out as it finally made sense to him, demanding to Henzo to have them all go back quickly, and I was starting to see a pattern, Luffy had a difficult time with subtlety in a conversation. If something was said plainly, and directly outlining the problems, then he had no difficulty in even in-depth concepts, however if something was explained in a long and twisted context, without saying what the problem flat out, then it was nearly impossible for him to put four and four together to get eight.
Huh...that'll help for the future I'm sure… I thought as I looked back and forth from Luffy and Usopp.
Usopp, still more and more annoyed, yelled out to Luffy, "Like he said! We don't know how to get back!"
Luffy placed his hands on his hat, which as usual, was sitting on his head, as he screamed out, "What?! Is that right?!"
Zoro butted in, asking to Robin to confirm, "So, there's no way back?"
In the background, Usopp was still yelling back and forth with Luffy, asking if he'd even been listening since they'd said it like three times, which I thought was kinda unfair to ask, I mean, I had the same tendency to block out a conversation if I weren't able to follow along with the tale too, so why would Luffy have been listening if he didn't understand what was being said? Plus, I swear I didn't hear them actually say that there was no way out…?
Robin answered Zoro, saying, "No…. There must be a way to get out of Ape's Concert.
Robin was staring at her book, the one about the Rainbow's Mist, when she said all that. It made me think that she was considering how, if the author had been able to write about the inside of the mist so accurately, then he must have not only gone inside the mist, but also managed to escape from the mist at some point, thus leading to there being a way out of said Mist. I couldn't talk right now, and it wasn't worth wasting the paper to satisfy my curiosity over something so trivial.
Henzo had ended up passing out, likely due to the stress and his old age. I stayed out on the deck with Usopp as he explained to Zoro all that had happened while he was asleep.
Luffy was trying to see that if we went straight ahead if we'd be able to sail out of it again. It was up to me to make sure we continued in a straight line.
However, apparently this Rainbows Mist had some kind of Loop feature, because we ended up passing the same damn ship again. Robin proved this by firing the forwards cannon that sat under the figure head. It landed behind and slightly to the portside of the ship, showing how the space inside the Mist was warped so incredibly.
Robin informed us how she'd read a book that said the inside of the Rainbow Mist was like a maze.
Luffy launched himself from the figurehead with a "Gum Gum Rocket" and Henzo warned us that he wouldn't necessarily return to the same location. Zoro called Luffy a idiot right before Luffy was caught by the mainsail.
When Luffy touched down onto the deck, he said, "I see! This is a Mystery Mist, where no matter how far you go, you end up where you started!"
The other two men of my crew that was with us, both sighed in relief, as they echoed out, "Oh, it's a strange mist."
As if that made any of this better!
Henzo expressed his disbelief in asking us, "Are you sure you understand?"
Zoro, sitting on the railing next to where Usopp was standing, said, "The part about not being able to get out of here, at least."
Luffy hopped up to where they were lounging using his stretchy rubber arms, and said with a laugh, "We don't have to get out. It's fun in here!"
I scowled and crossed my arms, tapping my foot in irritation.
Luffy and Zoro glanced over at me, I was standing on the other side of Usopp, and blanched at my facial expression. I raised up my left eyebrow and when Luffy, some might describe it as brave, while others might describe it as stupid, asked me what was wrong.
I rolled my eyes, but pulled out my notepad to write,
Luffy, we still have two more members of my family to find. We can't DO that if we are stuck in here for all time, let alone the others who are still back at the island, remember?
Robin offered up the temporary solution of joining up with Rapa Nui and the other children, saying how the best way to get ourselves out of Ape's Concert was to consult the ones whose territory it was.
Usopp agreed that it made sense, but then followed up with asking, "yeah, but where are they?"
Robin pointed over to my (and Usopp, Luffy, and Zoro's) left as she said, "Let's ask that boy over there."
When we all looked, there indeed was the boy I'd nearly apprehended before, he was hiding on one of the floating pieces of wreckage. It was only a bit of flooring with a broken wall that had a single circular port window and a small amount of railing behind it for him to hide behind, which must have been how she saw the boy.
On one hand, I was amazed at how observant the woman was, while on the other, I felt sad and a teeny tiny amount of sympathy. What she must have gone through to have such constant vigilance at the mere age of 28 years old.
She used her ability to push him out to where we could all see him, telling him it was no use, and then in the same breath asked him if he'd like for us to take him to where his boss was. Although her tone wasn't really in a "asking" sort of tone that allowed refusal of any kind. I could only smirk at it, as that worked rather well for us.
The boy led us through the wreckage to an old marine ship, it had run ashore of some rocks inside the mist, leaving its nose end to be tilted up skywards, while its ass end was over halfway into the water. As we approached we could hear the sound of a man's very loud and boisterous laughter. I raised my eyebrow at that and tightened my hand around the hilt of my sword.
As soon as we were spotted we heard a loud siren blare out, and the sound of Rapa Nui yelling out the boy's name, which happened to be Pukau.
He was talking to Robin, explaining how they'd made the wrecked Marine ship their current hideout since it had all the things they'd need to defend themselves. With the added bonus of food and whatnot already being stashed abroad the vessel.
Right then, Rapa Nui landed on the figurehead, from the crow's-nest of their marine ship, calling us all cowards for taking his friend hostage or something.
From behind him, Luffy asked him, (mind you he was still hanging upside down from the mast, claiming it to have a better view or whatever) "What are you talking about?"
Rapa Nui was carrying a sword and swung it at Luffy as he said angrily, "No more talk! Release Pukau!"
Naturally, Luffy dodged it by righting himself upon Merry's sheep's head before he could get decapitated by the amateur swordsman wannabe.
I couldn't help the scowl on my face at his improper use of the blade.
Luffy stood there, staring down at the rival child pirate captain. This was something that rose my respect for Luffy as a captain. Despite the fact that Rapa Nui was just a boy, he claimed to be the leader to a pirate group, thus making him a captain. Luffy didn't mock the boy's resolve by not acknowledging him as a captain, but instead was facing him as an equal.
Rapa Nui lunged again with another cross body horizontal slash, missing Luffy by near a damn mile with how easily Luffy dodged the blow. Luffy ended up standing next to Zoro, with one arm raised up as he said, "hey, calm down a minute!"
Rapa Nui wasn't having any of it, as he yelled, "Shut up! You took Pukau hostage and forced him to tell you where our base is, didn't you?!" He charged forward to swing again but was blocked by Zoro who had drawn his sword and with a single blow to the boy's blade, managed to disarm him, causing his sword to go flying off into the water over the side of this ship, before sheathing his sword in one fluid motion.
"That would be disgraceful," Zoro said to Rapa Nui in response to his allegation.
Rapa Nui was clutching his hand in pain, not used to the force and impact to the hand and forearm when blocking with a sword. Let alone when taking such a blow from a master swordsman like Zoro. Pukau approached his enraged friend, to tell him, "Rapa Nui, I'm not a hostage! They just asked me to lead them here, so I brought them!"
Rapa Nui didn't believe his friend, yelling, "They threatened you, to make you say that!"
Pukau got in front of him and had both hands up in a surrender motion, as he tried to reassure his friend, "it's the truth! These people aren't bad, I tell you!"
He ran over to Luffy and grabbed ahold of his face, at the mouth and lower eyelid, something that I winced at while thinking, I don't care if Luffy's rubber or not, grabbing his eyelid should hurt! Pukau had a worried smile on his face, as he pulled at Luffy's mouth and eyelid, saying, "Look, he doesn't get mad, even when I do this!"
He then proceeded to stretch Luffy's face in random contortions, trying to prove to his friend that we weren't the same type of pirates as Wetton was. That we were more like the kind of pirates that they themselves desired to become.
Rapa Nui looked seriously freaked out, as his left eye started to grow purple with the look of nausea that was being caused from the unnatural sight of a man's face being stretched like how Luffy's was without screaming in massive amounts of pain.
Rapa Nui was quick to shake it off, as he formed his hands up into a pseudo boxers' stance to continue to deny and challenge us for our "cowardly ways," as he yelled, "it's not true! This is all a strategy, to get us to let our guards down!"
Robin interjected, "you misunderstand. We just want to know how to get out of Ape's Concert."
Rapa Nui asked in a very guarded tone, shaking his finger in a "no no" manner, "and once you find out? You're planning to take all the treasures out of these shipwrecks and run off with them!"
Henzo finally broke in, saying, "Believe me, Rapa Nui, these guys, at least, wouldn't do that."
Rapa Nui whirled on his friend whom he refused to acknowledge as being his Henzo, yelling, "How can I believe the words of a grown-up?! Of course, they're out to get the treasure!"
Zoro finally had enough, as he remarked, "this is going nowhere," taking only two steps forwards before Usopp came out on deck, loaded down with dishes filled with food and a large steaming pot of something on the top of his head.
He cried out, "Look! Usopp's specially made lunch is ready!" and Luffy instantly had a huge smile on his face along with a long dripping line of drool.
I stared, wide eyed in horror, as I could just picture the pan spilling and thus burning our sniper while the doctor was lost to us outside the mist.
Luffy abandoned the very tense situation with Rapa Nui to race over to the food Usopp was carrying, with a joyful shout, "Yahoo! Food!" picking up two steam buns and beginning to stuff his face.
Usopp turned away from Luffy to ask the rest of us, "You guys want some, too?"
I smiled a hesitant smile, still fearful that Usopp's balance would cut out and cause him to drop the boiling soup on his head all over himself and now Luffy, since he was standing so close to Usopp. It would only take a mere fracture of a microsecond for something to go horribly wrong!
Pukau was quick to approach, with a happy jovial smile, as he asked in surprise, "can we?!"
Zoro smirked at the display, saying to the boys as a whole, "I can't vouch for the taste, though."
Usopp was able to finally set the food pans and serving plates down on the deck, dishing out bowls for himself, Luffy and Pukau, as he jokingly asked Zoro, "who asked you?"
Pukau was all praise for Usopp's cooking, I was sure that he'd have been in literal tears if it was Sanji's heavenly cooking though.
Usopp's ego was stoked by the praise, as he boldly claimed that there was nothing he couldn't do, and then in the same breath scolded Luffy for hogging the steamed buns. I smiled at the normality of it all, and joined them on the floor, grabbing one of the many steamed buns that Usopp had prepared. Biting into it, I was happily surprised to find that, while not as good as Sanji's, they were still damn good.
I gave Usopp a thumbs up, since I couldn't talk, and my hands were still full of the steamed buns, to which he lit up at the silent praise.
At Luffy's and my own compliments, Usopp explained that he'd lived alone for a long time and all, which I nodded, as I too was a decent cook when I had to prepare my own meals. I wasn't some gourmet chef, but I could still make decent food to enjoy if needed.
Robin took the time to point out that there were some children peeking out from the marine ship make-shift base of the Pumpkin Pirates, and that they looked like they'd like to join us for food. Zoro chose that point to sit down beside me and grab a couple of his own steamed buns off the plate that Luffy was eating from.
I glanced to the right of me, where I could see the ship, and saw the boys Akibi, in the green jacket, and the smaller, younger boy known as Rongo. Standing in between the two boys was the lilac haired girl, Isoka.
Usopp waved to them with a big friendly smile, asking for them to come down and join us, while their friend Pukau held aloft the steam bun in his hand, proclaiming them as "delicious".
All three of the children had huge smiles as they agreed after finding out it was alright from their friend and were quick to hop down. Rapa Nui, ever the distrustful sour pus, tried to tell them, "Don't let them sucker you in with food! Have you forgotten your pride as Pumpkin Pirates?!"
Henzo scolded Rapa Nui, finally, as the adult he was and not as the long-lost child friend, as he remarked, "Rapa Nui! Pride won't fill your belly."
I smiled sadly, realizing that he must have learned that lesson the hard way, just as I was told that Sanji had had when he was a boy.
We spent the meal in joyful reminiscences as we told the children of our adventures.
Well, I say we, but it was mostly Usopp and Luffy who spoke, Zoro only piped in when the two of them got it wrong (Luffy) or over exaggerated the tale (Usopp). Robin merely laughed and listened in as most of this was news to her as well.
Isoka was amazed that most of us were from East Blue. As children who'd grown up on an island inside the Grand Line, they were used to crazy as being the norm. Akibi was intrigued as that meant that we'd had to go across Reverse Mountain, Rongo took a breath between chewing to declare how that made us all amazing and having 'guts'.
Surprisingly enough for Usopp, his short recap of all that we'd gone through while in the Grand Line was short and accurate, as he said, "Yes, we've gone through many adventures up to now. We've dueled with giants, and sea serpents that swallow whole islands, and even saved a country from a secret society.
At the children's disbelief, I picked up my notepad and wrote,
Although Usopp is a bit of an exaggerator, this time, he's telling 100% the truth. The giants were on Little Garden, and our Captain briefly fought against one of them to keep him from getting injured. Then as we left Little Garden with the Giants, there was a giant fish that was dubbed "the island eater" due to its massive size. The country we saved was actually only a few weeks ago. It was the kingdom of Alabastra, we saved it because we had become friends with one of the members of the Royal Family. Don't tell anyone, okay?
At their faces when they finished reading my note, (Isoka read it aloud for Rongo's sake, as he was still learning to read) their eyes grew wide and their jaws dropped. Usopp scowled at my beginning. But I couldn't help smiling at the children's adorable faces.
Zoro would hit Usopp on the head whenever his exaggerations got to be too much, grumbling about keeping that kind of stuff down when others were eating.
Henzo tried to bring Rapa Nui a plate of food, since Rapa Nui didn't fully trust us; he had opted to lean on the rail away from all of us, and therefore didn't have a plate of his own.
The ungrateful little shit smacked the plate out of Henzo's hands, leaving it to smash against the deck. It's a really good thing that Sanji isn't here to witness this shit
Henzo didn't grow angry though, instead he kneeled before the brat, saying, "Rapa Nui, forgive me! Forgive my shameful self! I spent 50 years researching a way to save you from the Rainbow Mist, I've finally managed to get myself inside the Mist, but thanks to my carelessness, we can't get out. I'm a failure as a pirate professor!"
His hands clenched over the material of his pants that covered his knees, and he cried as he admitted to his mistake, "But I will endure my shame to ask you, if you know a way, please tell me! How do we get out of this mist?"
Henzo finally lifted his head to look through tear filled eyes at Rapa Nui, face to face.
"And then, we can leave here, together, and go back to our home."
Sweating a little at the heartfelt display, the brat said, "there is no way out. And even if I did know of one, I wouldn't tell you. I still don't trust you guys, after all," he finished as he looked away from Henzo.
I scowled more as Usopp sighed out, "and you call yourselves friends?"
The shithead brat turned on Usopp, loudly demanding, "What?!"
Standing, Usopp berated the childish brat, "Never mind us, Pops here is your friend, isn't he? Tell me, if you can't trust your friends, who can you trust?!"
I nodded from my seat beside him, as Rapa Nui snarled, "You keep out of this! You expect me to just believe that 50 years have suddenly gone by?"
With his hands still on his hips, Usopp retorted, "Believe it! No matter how much time has passed, or how different he looks, if he's one of your friends, who fell in under the same banner as you, you should know each other!" Usopp finished by pointing at the little shit, an angry expression on his face.
I'd been told how he'd grown up virtually all alone after his father had left when he was a small boy, so I could imagine that he thought of his father when expressing these kinds of words. I smiled wistfully, I had felt the same way when my brother and I had reunited. At the thought of him, I looked up to the crow's nest where I could still see the tips of Neal's feathers peeking out as he kept a look out for any dangers.
Usopp wasn't done with his speech yet, as he started yelling with his increasing passion on the topic, "The color of your flag may fade, but friendship is forever, you know!"
Rapa Nui didn't like being told off by a stranger, as he grit his teeth at the words, everyone else was stunned silent, while our crew just sat there as a silent witness to the other children only pirate crew, well except for Henzo being an old man now…
The silence and tension was broken by the ringing of a den den snail ringing from inside Henzo's pocket. He pulled out the snail, but before he could answer the call, Luffy's outstretched hand gabbed the snail and he answered it instead. I elbowed him in the bicep with a glare but didn't have time to write out a note. Damn it! I can't wait until I get the go ahead for talking from Chopper! Being mute sucks balls!
Zoro snarled, "what good does it do for you to answer?!" and I was impressed by the size of his East Blue Shark Teeth's length. Only person I'd yet to see with larger teeth had been Nami. maybe they're closer in ancestry to whatever fishman in their bloodlines than Usopp?
The voice that came out over the line was a familiar one for those of us who'd eaten at the restaurant.
It was the damn tax collector, Flip, from before.
"Well, well, Professor Henzo?"
Luffy must not have recognized the man's voice over the snail, for he asked, "Huh? Who are you?"
Flip repeated the question, before Sanji's smooth voice came through, "Luffy is that you?" and a second later Chopper asked, "Where are you?"
Nami apparently took the snail receiver to yell at us, "You guys just took the ship on your own and put the rest of us in a big fix!"
Luffy asked, "Huh? Is that you, Nami?"
Usopp asked, amazed, "You're connected to Nami and the others?"
Isoka asked, "Nami?" but nobody had time to answer her unspoken question on who 'Nami' was and why we were so hung up over her name.
Robin, sitting on the rail with a cup of her favorite coffee, thought out, "Hold on, if we can talk to her…"
Before she could finish her thought, Henzo snatched the receiver out of Luffy's hands to shout, "are we connecting to the outside world?! Flip?! Flip, are you there?!"
Flip must have taken back the receiver for he answered that, yes he was here before asking where we were. Well, he asked where HENZO was but since we were all together that was beside the point.
Henzo told him we were inside the Rainbow Mist, and that currently we couldn't get out before requesting that they rescue us.
At this all the kids that had been sitting down and eating with us began to joyfully exclaim various forms of wonderment at the idea of being saved. Isoka even asked the shitty brat how wonderful that was, but he just stood there stoically, arms crossed, and his eyes closed.
The only problem was when Henzo continued, saying, "there's no time. Tell Wetton to equip the safety search gear that I invented, and to come inside the mist. Also-"
As Wetton's name passed Henzo's lips in requesting for aid, Rapa Nui snatched Henzo's wrist that was holding the receiver, causing it to drop to the deck. Rapa Nui's grip on his arm must have hurt because he said, "what are you doing?!" in a pained grimace as the brat pulled Henzo's face close to his to snarl, "That name you just said, Wetton, is the same man who burned down the town of Luluka, isn't it?!"
Either Henzo pulled his arm out, or the Little Shit let him go, it was hard to tell from my angle, pulled away, and he held his arm, another sign that the Little Shit's grip had hurt, as he said, "Wait! I had to team up with that man, in order to save all of you!"
This seemed to be the final thing for Rapa Nui, who glared at Henzo, "Now it's all clear. You are NOT the Henzo that we know!"
He pointed at Henzo as he accused the old man, "if you were one of the pumpkin pirates, there's no way you'd become one of Wetton's pawns!"
Henzo bemoaned his beloved friend's name at the Shit's harsh words, and Rapa Nui further spat salt on Henzo's emotional wounds by telling him, "Don't call me by that name! You traitor!"
Furious on Henzo's behalf, I stood up and pushed the Little Shit back, making him fall on his ass, and swiftly wrote out on my notepad,
Grow UP you little shit! Henzo had to spend FIFTY YEARS alone! Away from his only friends, ridiculed, mocked, put down and out right HATED by EVERYONE on your home island! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE'S HAD TO ENDURE ALL THIS TIME! FOR YOU IT'S BEEN WHAT? A WEEK? TWO? MAYBE A MONTH? TRY IMAGINING YEARS! FIFTY YEARS! DESPERATELY DOING ANYTHING HE COULD TO RESCUE YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS! WITH A LITTLE SHIT LIKE YOU, I CAN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHY HE'D GO THROUGH ALL THAT EFFORT, BUT HE DID! SO STOP YOUR BABY TEMPER TANTRUM AND JUST ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YES, THIS IS YOUR FRIEND AND HE'S ENDURED A LOT OF SHIT TO FIND YOUR ASSES!
For now, just accept the fact that we're all going to be rescued out of this fucking mist and be a good little brat by staying out of the adult's way! If you want to be the captain to your kiddy crew, then start fucking acting like one! Take the responsibility to get your crew to fucking safety first before blowing up like a damn toddler who didn't get what he wanted!
I snorted out an angry huff as I thrust the paper pad at him, and he quickly scanned the note, his face blushing beet red at my angry words. I hadn't had time to write nicely, so it came out all squished and block letters, not my usual curly loopy style when I'm calm.
Before the Shit Brat could do or say anything, Flip called out through the receiver that was still lying on the deck, "hello? Hello?"
The transmission was weird as there was a lot of muffled shouting from various people, that honestly sounded jumbled. Maybe they covered the receiver for a private discussion on the other end? I thought as I glanced at the now silent snail.
We sent the kids off to gather any of their shit they'd left inside the marine ship that was serving as their base of operations, as we had the only travel worthy ship in Ape's Concert.
Luffy, bored, decided to entertain himself by launching himself from the deck with another Gum Gum Rocket. He took off into the loopy-ness of the Mist, laughing and clutching his hat to his head so as not to lose his precious possession.
It only took the kids a few minutes to gather all of their stuff, but Pukau and Rongo were taking a bit longer while Akibi and Isoka had finished quickly and made it back to stand with Rapa Nui.
Rapa Nui must not have taken what I'd written to heart, for he punched Henzo when Henzo tried to say something that I missed hearing, because I'd been focusing on Luffy shooting himself off into the Mist. Last fucking thing we needed was for him to fall into the water. Who knows what kind of marine life lived in this timeless void.
His two friends, Akibi and Isoka, each grabbed an arm and kept him from further attacking Henzo, claiming that there must be some kind of mistake, that Henzo would never become one of Wetton's men. I scoffed and ripped my note out of the Shit's pocket, where he'd stuffed it after glancing at it before. Must have stopped before getting to end cuz it pissed him off so much. Ops did I offend the shit's pride or something? I thought, as Rapa Nui refuted, "this isn't something you can just pass off as some mistake! Our town was burned down by Wetton! If he has carried on, and not forgotten that aggravation, and misery, then he'd die before doing anything Wetton told him to do! Or as those feelings faded over the last 50 years, too?!"
I quickly handed the note to Zoro to read aloud, stomping loudly on the deck to purposely draw everyone's attention.
He read it, making everyone glance at him, Henzo still lying on the floor from the punch, and Rapa Nui's face went beet red again. His friends, while distracted with the reading of the note, had loosened their gasp on his shoulders, and he took the opportunity to launch himself at Henzo.
Or at least, he tried to anyways.
Behind Rapa Nui, Luffy flew past, shouting out a, "Yooooo!" as he did so.
I shoved him with an open palm to the chest back into his friends grasp, just as Zoro got to the final half of my note, and I saw the Little Shits attitude calm just a little.
Henzo tried to sit up finally, groaning as he did so, and Rapa Nui's anger was inflamed all over again, and he grabbed Henzo's shirt at the collarbone, the other fist raised to punch Henzo again, to demand of Henzo, "What was 50 years ago for you was not all that long ago for us!"
I scowled.
Usopp rushed forwards and I started to shake with rage as Usopp said, "Hold on, Rapa Nui! Didn't you read and hear Wisp? You're only saying that because you DON'T know anything! Do you have any idea what Pops here has had to live with for the last 50 years?!"
OH SURE! When I write it out the Little Shit ignores it all, but when Usopp practically spits it in his face on what Henzo has had to endure, he calms right down! Fucking sexist Little Fucking SHIT-headed Brat! I thought, crossing my arms and cocking a hip as Usopp finished telling them all that Henzo had put up with during his time of researching the Rainbow Mist.
Isoka asked, "why?"
And as Usopp walked away, he said sarcastic as hell, "Isn't it obvious? In order to save you!"
Henzo tried to calm us down, by saying as he stood up and approached the Little Shit with more tears threatening to fall from his eyes, "it's all right. Rapa Nui, that had nothing to do with you guys. Hit me, Rapa Nui! I forsook my shame and my pride, to live under the protection of Wetton! Hit me, with your fist! Hit me, will you?"
Henzo spread his arms wide, waiting for the hit, as Rapa Nui's shoulders started to shake as his breathing became hitched, while Henzo one final time, "Come on!"
FINALLY, Rapa Nui's tears of frustration to the true reason he'd been so distrustful and angry all along sprang forth as he cried out to the sky, "Damn it! Why did 50 years have to go by?! As bad as I want to, I can't hit you, at your age, can I?!" his two friends behind him already in tears themselves.
Usopp, the fucking sap, was silently crying as well behind me.
Zoro had a smirk on his face, as he leaned against the railing with his swords resting besides him as he said, "Man, these guys are awkward."
Quickly wiping away his tears, Usopp brought Henzo, who was also crying, again?!, closer to Rapa Nui, saying, "That's better. You're friends, after all. Even though 50 years has gone by, you still understand each other in the end."
Opening his tear-filled eyes with a smile, saying Henzo's name as Henzo did the same for Rapa Nui, both had their arms outstretched to hug or shake hands, but at that second, Luffy came through the mist again, and collided with Rapa Nui.
Luffy shouted out, "Sorry!" while all those who could speak shouted out either Luffy's name or Rapa Nui's names in surprise, as Luffy's body tackle with Rapa Nui caused them both to go flying through the Rainbow Mist.
Zoro just called Luffy an idiot.
Robin was quick to reassure everyone, "No problem. The inside of the mist loops, after all. They'll be back soon enough…"
We all looked the other way to keep an eye out for the two boys, but the Mist was silent.
Robin, thinking out loud, muttered, "...or maybe not, huh?"
Both Usopp and Zoro muttered out, perfectly in sync with each other as they did so, "Now what do we do?"
I snickered, but it was a silent snicker, so no one glanced my way.
Henzo was quick to say, "Let's look for them. There's no telling what will happen within this mist."
As we descended the stairs, Zoro complained loudly, "man, he's such a pain in the ass sometimes."
I nodded but shrugged when he looked to me with his eyebrows raised. We all split up to search in different areas off the ship's side.
When no one saw anything, Zoro, Usopp and I went off ship to search around the surrounding wreckage. Neal flew down with Will to join, but when we all came back to the ship after what felt like an hour inside the mist, we were disappointed to see that no one had had any luck in finding them.
Henzo quietly theorized that it was possible that they'd been accidentally flung 'beyond the mist'.
Whatever that meant.
Akibi tried asking what that meant for Rapa Nui, not even bothering to mention as a side note our wayward captain.
But I didn't stress over that too much. They were just kids and under an extreme amount of stress and pressure right now.
Robin was standing at the bow of the ship, studying the different ships around us, and I could hear her mutter to herself on how the ships were all from different points in time, each looking pristine in looking like they'd only just recently been wrecked and not like they'd been there for hundreds of years. She even noted that there were ships in styles she'd never seen before, concluding that Ape's Concert was outside of the course of time and space itself. Linking the past, present and the future together.
I tried not to shudder in fear at that notion.
I mean, can you imagine if some mad scientist tried to use the Rainbow Mist to commit actual Time Travel? Or some kind of interdimensional travel with other worlds?! How insane would that be?!
((((that was a quick shout out to other fan fic's I've read in the past where they used the Rainbow Mist for that said purpose! Lol :D loved them!))))
It was then that Nami's voice rang out over the mist, as we all turned to the starboard side to see Nami rowing a small rowboat over to us, it was filled to the brim with all kinds of treasure, from gold jewelry to precious gemstones.
I honestly wasn't surprised she'd taken so long to find us to instead search for treasure and was only surprised that she'd allowed enough room to remain in the small boat for herself to sit and row it, instead of getting in the water and trying to push it or something, and thus allowing for more treasure to be hauled with her.
At Zoro's lackluster greeting of, "oh, it's you," Nami grouched at him, "what do you mean, 'oh, it's you'? And after I came all the way here just to rescue you! How rude of you!"
Seeing how much treasure she'd jam packed onto her rowboat, Usopp muttered, "you aren't the least bit convincing."
From besides him, I discreetly nodded my agreement.
As she ascended the rope ladder, she told him to 'pay it no mind'.
Neal and Will went down and started loading up all the treasure Nami had found inside of his last Storage Box that was available for more treasure. I heard him grumble about how if there was any more it would have to be stored on the ship the old-fashioned way and couldn't help but chuckle.
At the sight of the children on the ship, Nami asked who they were and where Luffy was. At the mention of Luffy, the children and Henzo's expressions fell and became glum, causing Nami to ask what was wrong as she saw all of our faces were grim too.
Usopp finally answered her, "They're gone beyond the mist."
"Huh?" she asked as she faced Usopp.
"Like I said, they're gone. They're not here anymore." He said morosely.
Growing irritated, she asked, "What do you mean?"
Glancing at Zoro, made him say to her as he looked down at the deck, "Just what he said. You weren't here for it, so there's no way to explain it to you."
I rolled my eyes, and snatched up my notepad to write for Nami,
What the idiots are trying to say, is that the mist has this weird loop effect where if you go far enough, you'll eventually wind up back where you started. But in this case, when Luffy Rocketed himself through the mist for fun, he never came back. Henzo, who's researched the mist for the last 50 years, thinks they've "gone beyond the mist." even though I have no idea what that even means.
I handed her my note and she scanned it quickly and punched Usopp and Zoro on the head for not just saying what I said in the first place. They scowled at her, but she proceeded to speak before they could complain at the physical abuse.
She raised her hand and said, "Okay. We're withdrawing!" with a cheer.
I dropped my notepad in shock, and Will and Neal came up on deck in time to hear Usopp and Zoro's scream in shock, "Just a minute!" (Zoro) and "What about Luffy!?" (Usopp)
Nami had a cheeky grin on her face as she said, "I'm not entirely sure what or how it happened, but there's no way he's dead, is there? Just leave him be, no problem. Come on, we're heading back!"
Zoro and Usopp were leaning in towards her from either side and I noticed that Nami wasn't really looking out across the mist like I'd thought but at a single gem that Will had accidentally left on her rowboat.
From above us, in the room that lead to the kitchen, Robin called down to Nami, "Is there a way to escape?"
Nami held up an ultra-thin rope made of steel wire, with a smirk as she said, "Of a sort."
Usopp asked, "That's just a rope, isn't it?"
I shook my head, and scooped up my notepad to write,
It's a rope made of metal wire, braided together into a super fine and probably super strong, rope. My guess is another invention by the "brilliant Professor Henzo" during his 50 years of research?
I had a cheeky smile over at Henzo as Nami read off my note aloud and was rewarded by Henzo blushing in embarrassment as Akibi and Isoka praised him for his geniuses.
Henzo opened his mouth to say something, but a man's voice called out from the Marine ship that the Pumpkin pirates had been using as their base, saying, "You're the one who came from Luluka, are you?"
It was a man in purple pants, with a black powder muzzle loader style pistol tucked into the teal blue sash that held up his pants, a blue striped shirt, and a white and blue striped bandana over his brown hair. I only knew what his hair color was due to the very bushy sideburns on his face.
Tucked under the arm with the tattoo that was too blurry to make out from this distance, was the little boy named Rongo.
He lifted his right foot up against the marine ship's white railing, and I could see that his pants ended in some kind of purple wrapped material and he only wore leather sandals on his feet.
Isoka identified the man for us by calling out his name in surprise, "Ian!"
Zoro asked calmly, as if this wasn't suddenly a hostage situation, "who's this guy?"
Akibi said, "One of Wetton's buddies."
Usopp asked, "what is that guy doing in here?"
Ian hopped down from the marine ship to land on the Going Merry, in the same way Rapa Nui had done so earlier, using the figurehead as a steppingstone.
We were all on the main deck besides Robin who was on the opposite side of the ship still, this meant that Ian was above us and he smirked at us and pointed over to Nami, as he said, "Why don't you hand over that rope to me?"
Nami had already tied the rope around her waist, so she merely tightened it as she asked him, "why should I? If you want to get out of the mist too, you can just come along with us, right?"
Ian sneered down at her, as he pulled out his pistol to point it at Rongo's head, "Don't you care what happens to him?"
Rongo screamed at the sight and feel of the pistol, squirming in Ian's grasp, as Nami said nonchalantly, "No, I don't."
Usopp whirled on her and said, "What?!"
Ian himself seemed stumped, as I smirked, glancing between the two. If Ian thinks he's got no leverage by taking one of the kids' hostage, maybe he'll let the brat go! Great thinking Nami! I thought as she went on to say, "Who is that kid, anyway? I'm not good-natured enough to help out a kid I've never even seen before."
Having said her piece, she closed her eyes, and turned her head away with her arms crossed over her chance, her body posture not giving away her true feelings. I caught the slight indentation her thumbs were putting on her arms, which was out of view of Ian above us.
He took his gun away from the kids head to point it skywards, as he laughed out, "yeah, can't argue with that." but he apparently still didn't seem to believe her, that or he was trying to push on her humanity or something, as she yelled, "What?! You jackass! I'll shoot him! I really will!"
I could see the desperate ploy for what it was, he knew he couldn't take all of us on in a fair fight if the hostage thing didn't work and was just too scared to give up on that fact. That or he wasn't as stupid as he looked and realized that the hostage thing was working, since we hadn't tried to kill him for boarding out ship without permission. Something that most other pirates probably would have done.
The kid, Rongo, however, didn't think of these things, and reacted predictably, calling Nami a murderer as the gun was again pressed to his temple.
Zoro placed his left hand on his Wado Ichimonji, and Isoka ran to Nami to demand of her, "Do what he says!" as if she has any real power to MAKE another pirate from a different crew do as she says aboard said other pirate crew's ship! HA! Sorry Isoka, this is just another lesson you all need about Pirates! I thought as Nami just stood there smirking, as she said, "who, me? That's silly-"
She was stopped as Isoka pulled a knife from her jacket pocket to point it right under Nami's nose, she tilted her head back so that the knife was instead at her throat and not her nose.
I scowled but didn't move.
If I reacted, it could throw off Nami's ploy against Ian and that could get Rongo killed even sooner.
Usopp threw his hands up, and said, "H-Hey, cut that out!"
Isoka cried out, "I don't want to lose any more of my friends! Please, do what he says!"
Isoka wasn't looking at me, and seeing how I was slightly behind her, that was right stupid of her.
With a quick chop of my hand to her wrist, I forced her to drop her knife with a scowl at her that just dared her to pull a stunt like that again. She just glared at me in response.
Ian must not have seen me disarm her, for he was descending the stairs as he said, "Nice, Isoka-chan! While you're at it, attach that lifeline to the boat."
Zoro smirked at me, and I nodded.
However, now it was my turn to make the mistake of taking my eyes off of Isoka. I'd stupidly wasn't looking at her since I'd disarmed her, and it made me remember what my Dad always said.
"Never take your eyes off of desperate people who are fighting for their loved ones. Those are the most dangerous kind of people there are. For they will do anything to save the ones they love."
She grabbed her knife and slashed the rope from Nami's waist, and dropped down into the rowboat, which, when I glanced over, had a bag full of the gems and not just a single gem like I'd thought before, still in the boat.
Ian hopped down as well and said to her, "Isoka-chan, why don't you come with me? With this much treasure, we'll never have to work again."
I instantly felt the hair from all over my body stand erect at the implied offer Ian made to the young girl. That fucking Pervert! He's a fucking Pedophile! I thought as I drew my sword.
Usopp and Nami both grabbed me, to keep me from jumping overboard to attack Ian, Nami hissing into my ear, "stop! He's got two hostages now! Do you want the kids to die?!"
I froze as I heard Isoka reply, "Don't get me wrong! Rapa Nui is the ONLY leader we have! I have NO intention of following a pantywaist like you!"
I was so proud and relieved to hear her fight back against Ian. That means that he hasn't had the opportunity to do anything to her yet. Oh, thank GOD!
Ian asked out a pissed off, "what?!" in a low growl, or at least an attempt at a growl, but after living with two people who practically growl like real wild animals, (Smoker and then Zoro) I found it rather unintimidating, to be frank.
Rongo took this opportunity to slam his head back into Ian's unprotected balls and penis area, yelling out as Ian sank to the bottom of the rowboat, "Run, Isoka!"
Ian stood up to smack Rongo into the water, yelling angrily, "Damn you!"
Isoka leaned over the rowboat, shouting Rongo's name, and Ian pointed his gun at her while saying, "mess with me, will you?!"
Usopp shouted out to Ian to stop, and I mentally cursed, as I knew that wouldn't do any good, plus there was no way either Zoro, Nami or I could get down to them in time to stop them.
Robin, thankfully, was already doing something to stop him.
She sprouted five of her bloom-bloom arms from Ian's back and, using two of the arms to force him to point his gun away from Isoka. She then used two of the arms to choke him out, while the fifth arm restrained his free hand behind his back.
Isoka took this chance to dive after her friend, who still hadn't resurfaced due to having his arms tied up.
Ian was shouting, "Damn it, let go! Let me go!" and I felt a sick satisfaction hearing the pissant say that after Rongo had begged him to do the same.
It was just our luck that in the ONE bag of gems that had been left behind was some piece of jewelry containing Sea Stone and that when Ian fell back onto his back from Robin's restrainment of him, for one of her five arms to have touched the damn thing.
At the contact of the mysterious metal, Robin lost her concentration and her arms scattered into small pink flower petals in the wind, thus freeing Ian.
Ian didn't waste any time hanging around when there was a person with a devil fruit like Robin's. Usopp pulled out his sling shot weapon, and I again lamented to myself about needing to find him a damn sniper rifle as Nami told him that he had better not miss.
However, due to her distraction, and Ian's swift rowing, Ian was soon out of range of Usopp's slingshot.
This just further cements the need for him to have a damn rifle! I thought as I scowled.
After fishing out Rongo and Isoka, who apologized profusely again and again, we got them dried off and bundled up with warm towels that were so large they swamped the kids like blankets where they sat against the mast.
Usopp made them some warm tea, while I helped Nami into trying to steer the ship after Ian in hopes that we still could make it out if we followed him.
Henzo and Akibi, meanwhile, were trying to see if they could get Henzo's transponder snail to connect with the outside again but weren't having any luck so far.
Will was back at the mizzen mast, tying off ropes while Neal was hovering above, trying to see if his large griffin wings could generate enough wind when he flapped to help us move along any faster. It wasn't, but it gave Neal and Will both the chance to actually DO something that felt like it was useful.
Robin was sitting on one of the deck chairs, a hand pressed to her temple, as the sea prison stone had given her a massive headache.
It was the first time Isoka or any of the kids had heard of the precious metal, so Zoro explained that it was a metallic sea crystal that had the power to cancel out devil fruit abilities.
Nami was bemoaning how there was no longer any point in having all this treasure if we were just going to be trapped here, to which I chucked something at her, and she said, "right, sorry Wisp, I'm sure we'll get out."
I nodded and went back inside to grab the rudder.
She was supposed to be keeping a lookout for the wreckage around us, and make sure we weren't, A.) going to hit anything, B.) keeping an eye out for Luffy and Rapa Nui, who she was simply told was the kid that was the other kid's leader, and C.) going in a circle due to the Mist's Loop like nature.
After thirty minutes, and we discovered we'd indeed gone in a circle, Usopp seemed to have gotten bored because he helpfully threw in his two cents, in saying to Nami, "You're the navigator, right? Do something."
As if it were that fucking easy! If it was, the One Piece would have been found twenty years ago! I thought as I considered whether or not to chuck something at him for the asinine comment.
Nami didn't need me to stick up for her though, as she said to Usopp, "Nothing I can do. This absurd area of the sea is a first for me."
Zoro sighed out, "we've got no other options huh?"
Henzo refuted that statement, saying that Ian would be coming back, because Wetton's ultimate goal is all of the treasure hidden inside Ape's Concert. With Ian having returned alive, Wetton would undoubtedly be heading up the large force under his command and come charging in here.
I nodded along, as that made sense that a former pirate turned wannabe tyrant mayor like Wetton, would be interested in doing something like that.
Nami, was NOT thrilled at that idea.
Loudly interjecting into the conversation by exclaiming, "You've gotta be kidding me! Lets fight! I won't hand over this treasure to anyone!"
Usopp, annoyed with Nami's greed, started to say, "Listen to you…"
But Rongo, who was looking into his warm cup of tea, said forlornly, "I wish Rapa Nui were here for us...he always knew what to do."
All the adults grew quiet, as we had no real means to reassure the young boy that his friend was fine other than to again point out that since he was with our captain, he was as safe as he could ever hope to be inside the Rainbow Mist.
Suddenly we were having to cling to anything stable on the ship, a the waves rose high and wild from being shoved out of the way of something.
Once the water was stable again, we were able to see what looked like a giant orange pumpkin thing sitting sideways in the water. In the center where on a normal pumpkin would sit the green stem, was instead the purple and red insignia of Wetton's Pirate Crew, that he had taken on as his "house crest" or something.
Zoro was the one to ask what that thing was, and Henzo yelled, "It's the Rainbow Tower!"
The orange part of the tower's top seemed to, well, bloom like a flower, for a lack of better description on how it opened up. Inside we could see that there was a tunnel running through the center of the tower that had some kind of conveyor belt coming out of it when the door dropped down into the water as a makeshift ramp.
Henzo said to himself, "So, Wetton, you've come after all."
Swiftly, a dozen or so small ships that looked sort of similar to Henzo's small mobile backpack suit ship came out, only these were big enough to carry between four-six men on them and have room at the pointed brow of their ships to carry cargo. All were painted at the pointed tip with the red and purplish-blue colors and design of the Wetton pirates jolly roger.
They all split up and I could see the first group of men leap out among the various wreckage and start filling their ship's cargo space with treasure. Once their ship's cargo space was full, they returned to the conveyor belt and unloaded the treasure onto it, where it was then being carried by the belt through the tower and presumably back out to the island of Luluka.
Our ship was soon surrounded and two of Wetton's men, decked out in the blue, maroon and purple uniform of his men, attempted to board our ship by throwing grappling hooks up to climb up with.
The kids were all fired up to fight back, and with a shout of, "Charge!" quickly attacked the men before they could get even a foot onto the deck of the Going Merry. Pukau was the first to reach these men and had swung a plank of wood like a bat into the man's head, making him fall down into the water.
Zoro and Usopp tried to tell them not to do anything crazy, but personally I felt it was a justified response to being boarded by the enemy.
Akibi told us that this was Pumpkin Pirates Territory and therefore their responsibility to defend it until Rapa Nui got back. Henzo even picked up a sword and joined in with his friends with a shout of, "I'm one of the Pumpkin Pirates, too! I'll fight alongside you!"
Drawing his slingshot, Usopp called out, "I'll help you out, Pops!"
But before Henzo could fully descend the rope ladder, he was blasted by a large amount of electricity. Robin screamed out, "Professor!" while he muttered, "they got me!"
He fell uncontrolled into his friends outstretched hands from the enemy boat they'd managed to steal, but his weight caused the boat to be flipped upside down. Hearing more zapping sounds, I followed the noise, and saw a young man inside of some strange mechanical suit that had robotic arms that emitted the electricity. He called out to his own men, "How come you guys are having trouble against those kids?!"
All the children, at the sight of the man inside the suit, called out in shock, "W-Wetton…?!" (Isoka) "He's still his same, young self!" (Pukau) Henzo was unconscious and therefore couldn't correct the children of their honest mistake.
Hearing the kids, he blushed and was quick to say, "No, you see, I'm Grandpa Wetton's grandson, Lake," before asking bashfully, "do I really look like him that much?"
All the kids agreed, "yeah, a dead ringer."
He was flattered and it showed in his movements of his hands as he bashfully waved them off, saying, "I am, huh? My grandpa was as handsome as I am, was he?"
Usopp asked Nami, "what's with him?" but I was pretty sure it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but Robin answered, "He's a weirdo."
Lake, as he introduced himself as, heard them, for his happy and bashful expression changed to enraged in 0.2 seconds flat, and glared up at us as he snarled, "You guys hand over your treasure, nice and easy! If you refuse, I'll burn you to a crisp with this electroshock suit!"
His deeper and gruffer voice made a more impressive growl than that Ian man's did, but it still didn't compare to Smoker and Zoro's deep voices. Zoro's, sometime could cause shivers to go down my spine and pool in my womb sometimes, mostly when he tried talking quietly cuz it made the tone of his growl to come out differently...ooooookay, I needed a dunk in a COLD COLD COLD bath, like PRONTO! I thought, shaking my head as I glanced over at Zoro, who was just now landing on the back of Lake's ship.
He had two of his swords drawn, and his dark green/black bandana firmly tied around his head, as he prepared for battle with Lake.
Nami called out to him to be careful of the yellow and black rods at the ends of the mechanical arms because they contained a strong electricity.
Zoro just scoffed and said with a smirk, "Heh, Electricity, huh? And here I was just itching to wreck a little havoc, too!"
Lake turned around and brandished his sparking electrical arms of his suit, as Zoro put his third sword into his mouth for his three-sword-style and challenged him, "I'll take your electricity, and cut it clean in half with my sword!"
(((no foreshadowing here for the next arc, right? lol...I LOVE all the different moments of foreshadowing that is used in One Piece! Watching the show for the second or third time and I STILL find new moments of such foreshadowing! I LOVE IT!)))
Nami and Usopp at her right, while waving their hands in a negative motion, and Robin stood beside her on the left, all muttered, "no, electricity doesn't work that way."
I snidely thought, not unless it's from a devil fruit and you had a sword of sea prison stone maybe? Another weapon to find...a sea prison sword...or even just a dagger?
Lake smirked at Zoro, as he felt comfortable in his ability to win, said, "This will be interesting. Just try it."
Zoro mumbled around his sword, "I was hoping you'd say that," and I could only marvel at how long it must have taken him to not only fight with his sword in his mouth, but be able to TALK around his sword without dropping it every time he did so.
We all stopped when we heard a commotion at the flower shaped opening to the Rainbow Tower where we saw three men, with one of them in a similar metal robotic suit, differences being their color and size, and the back of this one had some kind of orange liquid in two canisters that I presumed to mean this suit emitted something OTHER than electricity, come flying out. I skimmed over the second guy, as it looked sort of like it could have been that Flip guy, or maybe just another random soldier, but the third guy drew my attention. It was that Fucking, pedophile, Ian.
Just a little ways up the ramp, Luffy and Rapa Nui came rolling to a stop, Luffy sat up, sitting crisscrossed applesauce, and said, "Whoooo we stopped."
Ian shouted out a stuttered cry of alarm for his captain, and I gathered that he'd been updated on the whole, "50 years have gone by outside the Rainbow Mist, and I have grown old," fact.
Together, the pedophile and Flip, were able to fight Wetton in his robotic suit, as he stuttered out to Luffy, "Y-You've got some nerve, coming into the Rainbow Mist without my permission! You have to pay the 50 million-Berry 'entering on your own' tax!"
Luffy didn't even pause for a second before answering, "No way."
The men looked shocked as they cried out while Wetton started thrashing his robotic arms in incredulous disbelief, "What?! Are you saying you won't follow Wetton-sama's orders?!"
I raised my eyebrows in disgusted surprise as I thought, ewww…..He calls himself "sama"? How narcissistic can he BE?!
Rapa Nui, as a first-time flyer via Luffy's Rubber Rocket, was slow to pick himself up, but upon hearing Wetton speak his name, he pushed himself to get up faster.
Wetton gloated to the kid he clearly did not remember, "That's right. I am the grand, puffed-up mayor of all of Luluka, Wetton!"
Rapa Nui demanded in shock, "What? You, who were once a pirate, are now the mayor?!"
"What, is that so wrong?" Wetton asked, mocking the boy.
Ian pointed to Rapa Nui, and started freaking out as he said, "C-Captain! That's him! He's the one who stole our ship!"
Wetton calmed down enough to look closely at Rapa Nui, asking, "What?! Y-You're the kid from back then?!"
Rapa Nui was still hung up on the fact that Wetton, who had been responsible for burning down the town, was now said town's mayor and kept repeating how he would never accept that.
It was at that, that Wetton prepped his suit to fire out whatever that orange liquid fuel was at the brat, telling him to shut his mouth. I may be extremely annoyed with the ungrateful little shit, but that didn't mean I wanted the brat to die. I was only able to stand here on the Going Merry and watch because Luffy was standing right beside Rapa Nui this whole time.
He had been staring down at the three men below, judging them on their actions and what they said on whether or not they were good people.
He fired his mech suit, and literal fire came out like a flame thrower.
Rapa Nui dodged into the water, and Luffy dashed over to the side to check if he was okay or not first.
Wetton started speaking to Luffy, saying, "Kid, being the mayor is nice. I'm able to stay at my desk, and rake in all the money I swindle from all the foolish citizens. I don't have to wander the seas in search of my prey or get hunted down by the Navy! Every day is a carefree paradise! There's no other trade as easy as this! Once you are reborn, you too will obtain power, as I did. There's no use going on being a petty pirate! Ha ha ha ha!"
Luffy went stock still, and I knew that Wetton had struck one of Luffy's very, very few triggers to his temper. Reaching down, Luffy grabbed the yellowish orange tube that fed power to Wetton's mechanical suit, and with a single tug of his arm, Luffy THREW Wetton back up the ramp and into the tower itself.
He yelled out, "Shut Up!"
What's the scariest part of all that, is Luffy hadn't even looked up from the "ground" that was the metal ramp he was standing on when he did all that.
Ian shouted out in concern for his captain, while the other guy said father, so it confirmed for me that it was in actuality Flip and not some random soldier.
Wetton had apparently landed onto the generator for his suit, as he was forced to remove it to fight Luffy.
Using his rubber abilities and still not looking up yet, Luffy further destroyed the suit when Wetton didn't take it off fast enough, as Luffy said, "You don't know what a REAL pirate is."
Wetton asked, "what?"
"We don't need power. We pirates have a dream, after all."
"A-A dream, you say?"
A bright flash of blue electrical light flashed before my eyes, blocking my view of Luffy's face off with the tyrant mayor pirate, and my attention was drawn down to Zoro and Wetton's grandson, Lake.
Lake must have grown tired of waiting for his ji-chan to finish, that or had thought to attack Zoro while his 'guard was down' or something. Zoro's entire body was covered in deep dark purple bruises from where he'd been hit from the rod that were all topped with painful looking electrical burns. I winced as I saw Zoro breathe deeply through the pain.
Smirking from inside his robo suit, Lake said, "My electroshock suit is invincible! You cannot escape from it!"
Zoro viewed this as an insult, as he asked, "escape? Who, me? I told you, I'm gonna cut that electricity of yours in half!"
Annoyed with Zoro, Usopp called down, "Like I said, where's the sense in trying to cut electricity!?"
Robin tried to be funny by asking, "Shall I cut it?" but Usopp was apparently done with this gag before it had even started, as he whirled on her, saying, "Not you too!?"
The combatants below us weren't paying any attention to us out here in the peanut gallery, as Lake shouted, "take this! Rolling Thunder!"
He brought his black and yellow rods together and charged up his electricity and with the rods connected, it doubled their electrical wattage.
Or, it should have.
Instead, nothing happened, and he started stomping his feet, demanding, "huh? What's going on here?!"
Turns out, Robin meant her joke literally.
Using two bloomed arms on the sides of his mobile generator, she had "cut the power" by unplugging his suit from the generator.
Will and I doubled over in laughter, mine silent, as Will started repeating, "haha CUT it! Hahaha Cut the power!? Good one! Hahahaha"
Robin smirked at our mirth, as she said, "that suit he's so proud of doesn't seem to be of much use once the plug is pulled." She then tossed the plugs into the ocean, thus making them useless for the guy at the bike part of the generator.
Lake shouted out, "What?! Damn it! How can this happen?! Put it back! Put it back, you bastard! You jackass! That's not fair!"
Nami smirked down at Lake and sing-song, "Pirates~! We don't have to play fair!"
All of Lake's thrashing about while in his top-heavy suit was detrimental for him, as it threw his balance off and made him fall into the water.
Thanks to the trapped air inside his suit, he had enough time to scream, "Help me! I'm sinking! I'm sinking! Ah, I can't open the top!"
I almost fell to the floor this time in my laughter, as I heard Zoro mutter, "let me cut something!"
There was an explosion at the Rainbow tower, and I just knew it had to somehow be Luffy's fault from his fight with Wetton. Zoro, having now jumped onto the ship the kids had commandeered and gotten Henzo to wake up, asked, "damn it, what's going on?"
From the water, we saw and heard Ian, who was swimming while carrying a knocked out and severely burned Flip over his shoulder, "He's abandoned us! Wetton, you bastard! You're not the captain anymore, dammit!"
Just slightly closer to us in the water, Rapa Nui burst through the water while carrying Luffy, who looked like he'd drank in too much water, as he was entirely listless. Everyone was overjoyed at seeing Rapa Nui and Luffy. Zoro and Akibi worked together to pull Luffy and Rapa Nui up into the commandeered boat, while Zoro grumbled, "Man, how big a pain can one guy be?"
There was a wave of pressurized air, not strong enough to do anything, but enough that we all felt it, along with this rumbling sound that went throughout the mist, as Henzo asked, "w-what's that?"
He'd been moved by Robin's arms up to our ship after they realized they needed more room on the smaller boat the kids had stolen, to haul Luffy up out of the water. When he started looking around and muttering to himself, "it can't be…" I had a moment of Deja-vu, as Robin asked him, "Professor?"
"Ape's Concert was maintained in a delicate balance to begin with. If you set off a large explosion in a place like this, there's no telling what might happen!"
Looking up, we all grew frightened for a moment, as we saw a patch of the real blue sky shimmering above us, with ripples of the rainbow mist moving over it like water does over a reflection. Everyone who saw it, asked, "what's that!?"
Henzo shouted out, "The warping of space is expanding quickly! At this rate, we'll be caught in it, and all of us will croak!"
Usopp's frightened scream of, "WHAT?!" drew most of us out of our shock, as Henzo said, "there's not much time! An hour at most!"
Usopp said, "this is bad! We have to get out of here!"
Nami asked, hands holding her head in fear, "but how?!"
Robin started desperately flipping through her book, as she said to Usopp, who was standing besides her, "The author of this book once visited Ape's Concert. The way out must be written in here somewhere too."
When she flipped all the way to the back of the book though, her eyes widened in horror as she gasped. Usopp asked what was wrong and she grew grim and she slammed the book shut, as her frustration grew, quoting the book, "Continued in the last volume."
Usopp asked where that book was, probably prepared to dash to some obscure part of the ship to bring it for her, but she closed her eyes and shook her head. Fuck! Robin doesn't have the book at all! Now what?!
Rapa Nui pointed to the light of the setting sun, where he and Luffy confirmed that it looked like the light they'd followed to get out of the mist when they'd been separated earlier.
Henzo reminded everyone to hurry since the light could disappear at any moment, and we all raced to get the ship moving as Nami barked out, "Unfurl the sails! Everyone, man the oars as hard as you can!"
Zoro was kind enough to tell the members of Wetton's men, and family, who'd been left behind, "Hey, you guys come on, too! Give us a hand! We're getting out of here!"
Good thinking, those guys should be pretty strong to man handle those robotic mech suits all the time...with them helping out at the oars, we might just stand a chance of getting out of here! I thought as I worked besides Usopp.
I tried not to bitch about the fact that I was paired up besides Usopp again since Zoro was on my other side, and I knew he could pull his own weight, I swear it still feels like I'm pulling more of the muscle here than I should!
Using a whistle, Nami helped us all to time our strokes in rowing the massive oars, but Lake and Ian weren't good at keeping up with Zoro and my crazy strength, and we started doing circles at first.
Then one of the oars got stuck in some of the floating wreckage, and broke the oar, and was swiftly followed a mere second later by the other oar breaking.
Usopp pointed to the light, and shouted, "Hey, this is bad! The light is starting to disappear!"
Henzo muttered, "so, this is the end…"
But the children weren't out of ideas yet when Nami mentioned the wish having a tailwind to blow us out of here.
Rapa Nui, with a mutter about us only needing wind to blow, jumped into the water. When Nami asked him what he was planning on doing, he shouted, "blow up our ship!"
As he swam, he explained, "it was originally a navy ship, after all. It's fully loaded with cannonballs. If we light those, it should give you a fairly powerful tailwind!"
Akibi called out, "you can't!"
To which Henzo screamed out, "Wait, Rapa Nui! If you do that, what…what will happen to you?!"
As one, all four of the other kids stepped forwards and jumped in after Rapa Nui, shouting his name.
Usopp asked where they were going, and to come back, but the kids declared that they were Pumpkin Pirates, that they'd sworn to stay together until they died. Henzo tried to draw them back with the words, "Rapa Nui dove in to save you guys! Don't let what he's done be for nothing! Are you all trying to get killed together?!"
Isoka and Akibi, the two strongest of their swimmers, turned back to tell Henzo, "We're not going to die! Henzo, I promise, we're coming back! No matter how many years it takes, we're coming back to Luluka!"
The force from the explosion caused us to go flying out of the last shred of light, and it turns out that it was situated right over top of the ocean of the harbor to the island of Luluka. The force of landing into the water, and coming to a stop, made the entire ass half of the Going Merry to fly up into the air and completely out of the water, while the figurehead sank beneath the waves for a second, causing us to rock back and forth for a couple of times.
I tried not to get sick at the motion; it was a herculean effort.
We rocked back upright and in the proper position a ship is supposed to be in another second later, and we all swayed in place from the rough ride. The mast and the sheep's-head figurehead broke off and fell into the water from the rough stressful treatment that the see-saw motion caused onto the Merry.
I heard Chopper scream out, "The Merry!"
But the Rainbow mist wasn't done, it began sucking up a large mansion from the top of the highest cliffside, to which I found out was Wetton's mansion later, and made money practically rain from the sky upon the people of Luluka. I always laugh to myself at the poetic justice of it all.
We all swam to shore, I offered to get those with devil fruits there quickly, so I grabbed Robin in one hand, while Will clung to my back, piggyback style with Neal tucked in his sweater as a parrot, and then grabbed Luffy with my other arm. Slipping under the water long enough to change into my tail, I got them to shore before they could even struggle for air. Robin's face had grown the most fearful I'd ever seen from her in the time that she'd been a part of the crew, along with the most amazed at the sight of my tail.
I dropped them off on the cobblestone harbor and made my way back for the others. I was able to carry three people this way and soon had everyone over in a matter of moments.
Nami was the most difficult to get into the water with me.
After having heard her story of her ordeals under my distant cousins the Arlong Pirates, I wasn't surprised by her hesitance, even after having seen me with my tail at the baths in Alabastra.
She hadn't needed to touch my tail and feel my scales then.
I smiled and she gave me a watery smile in return before she sucked in a deep breath to gather her courage, likely reminding herself that I was NOT Arlong. Maybe she needs to talk about what she underwent in the time she was their slave. I was always told by the doctors at the marine base to let that shit out and not hold it in. Who did she ever have to talk to about that crap? Certainly not her sister, as she was only doing that shit to free her, Nami wouldn't want to overly burden her sister like that.
When I brought Nami over, I did it with only her, something Usopp grumbled about but didn't make too much of a fuss over.
Will was quick to offer a hand to Nami from the water, and we all flinched when Nami subconsciously recoiled at the sight of Will's gills being more clearly on display due to the water.
Will didn't say anything about it, just continued to smile as he offered her a handout of the water.
She was quick to mumble apologies, but I waved her off.
Will and I both understood that trauma like what she faced for eight long years could and possibly would have left lifelong scars that no one could see.
Once on shore, Usopp was reduced to tears at the sight of the Going Merry, saying, "Damn, how can this happen?! My precious ship!"
I frowned and tapped Will's attention to soundlessly say, so that Will could lip read for me, "Tell Usopp that it's not HIS ship, but Luffy's as the Captain! We are the CREW not the owners of the Going Merry! He can't keep saying shit like this!"
Will nodded, face a mask of seriousness.
I was so thankful that Will had had experience on another pirate ship, one that while good, still took these kinds of things as serious as they deserved.
He pulled Usopp aside, and they had a harsh whispered conversation, that for once, I was glad not to be a part of.
Turning away from them, I was just in time to witness the Tyrant, Wannabe Mayor, Pirate, Wetton get his ass arrested by a bunch of marines. At the first chance I'd had to get a really up-close look of the guy, I was surprised at how much the guy looked like an orangutan in the face.
Or maybe that was just me.
After the marine grunts left, leaving only the captains and their squad lieutenants, (this had an unequal number since the captain to the third ship was escorting the cuffed Wetton off to the ships) we were all amazed to discover that these five marines were in fact Rapa Nui, Isoka, Akibi, Pukau, and Rongo all grown up to the same age as Henzo!
They regaled us with how, when they blew up the marine ship in the Mist, it had blasted them off through the mist and they'd exited out of the mist some fifty years ago!
The problem was, they were on the other side of the world in one of the Blue Seas as children. They had no means to travel to Luluka. Rapa Nui had the grand scheme master plan of becoming Marines so they could make it here to arrest Wetton.
Unfortunately, it took longer than any of them had initially realized to climb the ranks and be awarded with their own ships and men to sail into the Grand Line, let alone to Luluka.
Everyone laughed and rejoiced at being together again, that deep down, they had always considered themselves members of the Pumpkin Pirates.
I smiled wistfully, as I glanced around at my crewmates.
Zoro, feeling my eyes on him, came over and helped me out of the water. My tailfin was still in the water, so I wasn't going to be changing back for a LONG time, but that was fine with me.
Might as well play up this beautiful mermaid shindig while I could right?
All the marine grunts from the ship next to us were hooting and hollering at me, causing the male members of my crew to bristle at some of their insinuations, but I smiled wide, and flipped off the WHOLE damn ship!
Many of the men fainted in shock, others laughed their asses off, and a brave lucky few dared to wolf whistle.
I grabbed a fresh notepad out of my waterproof bag, and wrote in bold black marker,
IF YOU ANY OF YOU GUYS CAN BEAT OUR FIRST MATE IN A SWORDS DUEL, I'LL GIVE YOU A BJ!
Zoro scowled at me, and I smirked, mouthing slowly so he could follow along, (he'd been "secretly" learning how to lip read from Will, along with Sanji, that they could understand me in case I lost any forms of writing before Chopper cleared me to talk, the sweethearts.) and I said, "You said you wanted to cut something back inside the mist. Here is your chance. There's no way any of these ants could honestly beat you. Just giving them incentive to attack despite their fear. If your good and beat ALL of them without taking a single scratch, I might just offer that reward to you instead."
His scowl turned into an honest-to-god happy grin as he blushed beet red.
The sight of which nearly made my heart stop.
FUCK, HE'S TOO DAMN SEXY WHEN HE SMILES! NO WONDER HE DOESN'T DO IT ALL THE TIME! HE'D HAVE TO BEAT OF THE HUSSIES WITH A STICK! BY THE MINUTE TOO! HOT MAMA! Apparently I was in desperate need of a good down and dirty hard fucking if I was thinking things like this about his damn smile! GOD WHYYYY?!
Celibacy can kiss my ass! I groaned while feeling hot and bothered as I watched him go to town on the marine's asses. God…. look at all those MUSCLES! I practically drooled. Dear lord...Bad Wisp!
I actually used my hands to forcibly turn my head away from where Zoro was fighting against the grunts. But my traitorous eyes kept getting drawn back to the fight.
Everyone was staring at me.
Sanji was crying on the floor and then alternating in yelling death threats to Zoro.
Ops...forgot for a second that all of them were there too…. SHIT….
Will was laughing his ass off, the little shit.
Usopp was, oh he was passed out on the ground besides Will with a massive nosebleed. The pervert. As if he never thought about doing those things with that girl he was sweet on back at his home island. Kaaya? Kya? Kaya! That was her name.
Luffy was looking at me confused, whispering into Robin's ear, "what's a BJ?"
Robin smiled serenely and I glared at her. Luffy didn't NEED to know what this shit was JUUUUUUST yet, thank you very much. Sure, I'd given him the rough low down on the birds and the bee's talk, something Ace or their parents/guardian should have done, but I don't think I had gone into too much depth on slang for the different aspects of it all.
She chuckled and said that it stood for something two people in a romantic setting did together ALONE in a bedroom. Luffy struggled for a second to figure it out, but then his face went red and he too had a single drop of red blood flow from one of his nostrils.
My jaw dropped in shock as I blushed.
That BITCH!
She smiled a sneaky smile, and I knew, oh it is SO ON! The ultimate test to my pranking skills was about to be unleashed against the "former" master spy/assassin. This would take some serious planning for all the 'good stuff' that I normally didn't pull out, as most of the time they were for prolonged prank wars.
There was a reason all of Smoker's men feared my name and the word "pranks" in the same sentence, after all.
Not going into details but let's just say it involved all of the entire base falling victim to numerous pranks while out doing a single four hour long drill on sea battle warfare that had, but was not limited to, massive amounts of Glue, Wax, Clear Plastic Wrap, Food Dye, Paint and Scissors. Not even Smoker had been exempted from that day. Ahhhhh good times….
I only pranked the man once a year, and usually when it involved dealing with large groups like this one, so that it wasn't gonna get him in trouble for either, 1.) me playing favorites (that was after the first time and everyone had found out it was my fault for all the base wide pranks) and/or for being accused for committing the pranks in the first place (that was BEFORE everyone found out it was me...took them five tries before Smoker figured it out by accident. DON'T ASK, WE WON'T EVER TELL WHAT HAPPENED!).
OLD Rapa Nui, who was still a little shit in my book, made a huge comical fuss on how, now that Luffy's first mate had incapacitated all of the lower ranked officers, he had less crewmates to haul away Wetton, and would have to use the cargo hold in two of the ships as makeshift infirmaries and therefore couldn't haul away ALL of the treasure that Wetton had taken into confiscation as per marine protocol.
Nami saw the opportunity for what it was, and with the help of Will and Neal, who had finally managed to dry off his feathers after the dunking, managed to unload over 3/4ths of it onto the Going Merry before Rapa Nui could even blink.
It was then that Zoro sauntered over to me, not a scratch on him from the grunts. Only thing on him was the light bruising from Lake's mechanical suit. Apparently the burns were not as bad as I'd initially thought because it was mostly charring from the electrical burns.
I laughed silently, and lifted my arms up, to which Zoro scooped me up into his arms effortlessly. I nearly simpered at the feel of his arm muscles and his smirk that was directed at me.
I was growing rather hot; I just knew my face was red from the blood rushing to my face.
Sadly, that reward was put on hold as Old Rapa Nui did some drawn out comical theatrical worthy performance on why they and the other marines couldn't just call for backup in "taking on the StrawHat Pirates" and were forced to flee. I thought it was a much better performance than the one on why he had to "leave" the remainder of their evidence behind for Nami to "steal" away.
Everyone else wasn't as appreciative and called it a put-upon act.
They were so deadpan about it and in perfect sync that I couldn't help but shake with silent giggles in Zoro's arms. Feeling that, he looked down and smirked at my amused face.
I promised him that reward, and while I may not be able to fulfill it anytime soon, I did intend to hold tight to that promise, damn it!
With Henzo's help, we were able to do a patch job on the Merry involving lots and lots of iron plates and rivets to hold everything together. It wouldn't look pretty, nor would it last forever, but it would at least keep the water out and should last us until we managed to find a suitable Shipwright to repair the ship.
We sailed away after getting the ship fully stocked up on food and anything else that the various crew members could think of. Nami even procured a map of the town and a separate map of the island itself while she, Sanji and Chopper were out shopping.
Henzo saw us off with gratitude and the five kids all grown up saluted us as they passed us by when leaving with their other ships.
I gave a perfect Marine salute in return and in no time, we were well out of sight of Luluka island.
About an hour later, we were gathered around the figurehead where Luffy was sitting between the ram/sheep head's horns.
Luffy was happily reminiscing about how the island had given us an interesting adventure, while Nami was adamant that she'd had enough of the ship graveyard. I tapped Will to ask her, "even though we got a shit ton of gold for the crew?"
She giggled childishly as she spun around with her new "bling" wrapped around her neck, fingers, ears, wrists and almost anywhere else she could fit the various pieces of jewelry she'd "recovered" from the ship's graveyard.
Luffy laughed and said, "well, it's not like I wanna live there, but I wanna visit from time to time."
Chopper, one of the three who hadn't seen the inside of the Mist, asked excitedly, "was it really that nice?"
I tuned out the conversation as Luffy and Usopp went into detail about the mist for Chopper and the other two that hadn't gotten to join us inside the mist.
Will and Neal flew back up to the crow's-nest. They were quickly taking it over as their "space", only coming down for meals or when Nami and Will worked on their map/art together. I was happy that he seemed to be enjoying himself, but it also worried me. I couldn't ever remember Will being such a loner before we'd all been separated, and it saddened me to see such a drastic change in my brother from the one I remembered as a child.
Gazing out across the ship, I saw that Zoro was the only one who hadn't gathered with Luffy and the rest of us at the bow of the ship, instead opting to weight train in the back by his lonesome. I figured that once we were done with our conversation that I'd join him.
According to Nami's research, aka asking the various shop owners she'd scammed, she had learned that the next island wasn't for at least another two-three days, depending on the Grand Line's weather bull shit.
Sadly, with a ship this small, there was NO WAY for Zoro and I to sneak off and enjoy his reward I promised him back on Luluka. Not to mention how thin the walls are on Merry.
This equaled to practically NO privacy.
A real shame let me tell you.
I was hoping that I could draw his reward out and get laid finally!
At this rate, I'd likely be a virgin again before getting the chance to fuck the sexy swordsman. (yes, I'm aware that is a medical impossibility…hence the perfect metaphor!)
Hell, I could barely get five minutes alone in the damn bathroom, let alone the couple hours required for the kind of fun I wanted to have with Zoro!
I sighed. I couldn't wait for tomorrow!
Chopper said that tomorrow should be the last day of my treatment with the medicine and remaining silent for optimal vocal improvement. I was soooo thankful!
This whole, being temporarily and voluntarily, mute to increase my healing for my throat gave me a whole new level of appreciation for the little whispering voice I'd had had before Alabastra!
Hey everyone, so I am soooooooo sorry for how late this update this was…can't believe it's Thursday and I usually try to post on Saturdays…..bad me….
I could give ya'll my excuses of how bad my knee's been acting up, how busy my families have been this last week, how I've taken to babysitting lately, but I feel I could have done this faster if I wasn't having writers block with the scene I'm on currently. I managed to write a bit, but its not coming out quite how I want it to…
But as a way to make it up with you guys, I did the entire Luluka section in this chapter, so it's definitely not going to be a short chapter…lol yeah at over 25,750 words, this is officially my longest chapter yet! O.O
As always everyone, I hope you all stay safe and healthy during this pandemic!
