Here we go peeps, the changes just keep on coming. And to think that we haven't even gotten to the massive plot shifting ones yet! Haha! You'll have to wait for one of those! But believe me, I finally got some writing done this week and there is seriously some crazy stuff coming after Alabasta. Not say that this one won't be a lot of fun. Hehehehehe.
Wealth, Fame, Power…
Chapter 47: Royalty
It had been a couple of hours since the Straw Hat Pirates departed from Reverse Mountain and into the large abyss that was the Grand Line. The sun was a gloomy shade of orange as it awaited its time to set and welcome the moon into the sky.
But one thing that still couldn't get settled was the heated conversation going on aboard the Merry.
Well, if you could even call it that… Mostly it was just Luffy and his crew questioning a very remorseful looking Vivi while she held onto her pet duck for dear life.
"This still doesn't make any sense Vivi! If you're really a princess like you say you are, then why the hell are you hanging out with bounty hunters!?"
"I… It's a long story… I can explain Luffy!"
"Then start talking."
Taking one last gulp, the alleged princess hugged her knees and prepared to talk once more. Though she would admit that it was quite hard to get her never back up with all of the judgmental stare being thrown her way. But nonetheless, Vivi began her story.
"Ok… I'm not all that surprised that you guys don't recognize my name or my kingdom. We're kinda on the sidelines as far as the Grand Line goes, but that's just the beginning."
A nod from the rubber man spurred the blunette on and proved to her that he was still listening. So far so good.
"Now, with that said, have any of you ever heard of an organization by the name of Baroque Works?" She said in an almost hopeful tone.
For a short while, all of the straw hat's had blank looks on their faces. And Nami seemed to be the only one of the group actually trying to recall any information on the unusual name.
But when the orange haired teen came up with nothing, Vivi just sighed, ready to continue her story without any proven credibility.
"Wait a second," Zoro spoke up at the last minute. "Bounty hunter organization… What did you say their name was?"
"Baroque Works," Vivi repeated.
After a few more moments of looking totally lost, the slow thinking swordsman had a lightbulb go off in his head. "Baroque Works… Yeah, that sounds familiar. I'm pretty sure they offered me a spot back when I was still a bounty hunter."
"Dang Zoro, why didn't you accept? That sounds a lot better than being a pirate," Nami said offhandedly, knowing it would draw a reaction from the straw hat captain.
"Hey! Pirates are awesome Nami!" Luffy pouted.
Ignoring the giggling from the navigator and the annoyance from the captain, Zoro shrugged his shoulders and answered indifferently. "It wasn't a good fit, and I didn't wanna have to share my captured bounties with any useless teammates. Plus, they had this stupid code within their ranks where they all had to go by code names, and I was not about to call myself Mister Eight or whatever."
Vivi could not have been happier that the existence of Baroque works was being proven by someone other than her, but there was one thing holding her up now… Did he say Mister Eight?
"Hold on one second… Zoro, correct?" When the swordsman nodded, the blunette continued slowly. "I'm glad you can corroborate my story by identifying Baroque Works, but did you say Mister Eight?"
"Yeah, that's the crappy code name they wanted me to take. But I wouldn't be caught dead being called that."
"And umm, how long ago was this? Just out of curiosity of course," Vivi hummed nervously.
"Hmmm," the pirate hunter thought again. "Maybe around a year ago? Why?"
"O-oh my…" Vivi gasped to herself. This is crazy! This guy was strong enough to be a number agent a whole year ago!? And to think he's not even the captain! She thought rapidly, changing her sightline to look at Luffy childishly bicker with an orange haired girl.
"Get on with it," Zoro warned again, getting her attention back on him. "Why did you ask that?"
"Hey! Layoff mosshead! Don't talk to a lady like that!"
"What'd you say crap cook!?"
Before the two could get one of their clashes off however, Nami made her presence known and stepped right between them. "Alright, everyone just shut up let this poor girl talk! I'm getting a headache again!"
Seconds later a very purple faced Luffy crawled back and joined the group as well. "Owie, it's not my fault you get mad super easily."
Vivi had the urge to giggle at the sight before her, they were all so big and scary at first glance. But clearly there was more to this crew than met the eye. And she was so caught up in thinking about this phenomenon that she never even noticed them all staring at her again, waiting for the rest of her story. "Oh! I'm sorry! Uh, where was I?"
"I don't know, but you wanted to know how long ago those weirdos gave me that offer."
"Oh yeah! You reminded me of number agents, but I'll get to that in a minute. Right now, I just need you guys to trust me."
"Believe me Vivi, I want to, so give me reason."
"Right," she nodded. "Here goes. I already told you guys that I'm the princess of Alabasta, but I haven't told you why I'm a part of Baroque Works. You were right to be skeptical of them Mister Zoro, they are indeed a very shady organization. In fact, they are the very organization that is tearing apart my country from the inside."
Seeing that everyone was still with her so far, Vivi continued. "As soon as we discovered this, a few of us from the royal family decided to infiltrate Baroque works to try and gather more information about our targets… And boy did we find out a lot."
"For one, we found out the identity of the leader of the organization, Mister Zero."
"Zero?" The pirate hunter asked, clearly miffed at how the numbering worked? Why do the numbers go down?"
"Oh yeah, that's what had me so impressed earlier. Baroque works is divided into three main categories for agents. Billions, millions, and number agents. With the latter being the strongest. They're the ones who are numbered one through ten, getting stronger and stronger the lower the number."
"Huh, well would you look at that. I guess I turned down a pretty fancy position," Zoro said with amusement.
"Yeah, you're telling me. What surprised me more though was that you were offered that spot an entire year ago, that's insane."
"Heh, yeah, good point. I wonder where I would get placed with how strong I am now?"
"Not as high as I'd get placed, that's for damn sure," A certain cook mumbled off to the side.
Luckily for everyone's patience though, Zoro didn't hear him, and Vivi was able to pick up where she left off in her explanation.
"So anyways, onto Mister Zero, you guys aren't gonna believe who's behind all of this."
…
…
…
"Well!? Tell us!" Luffy yelled on the edge of his seat.
"Oh uh, sorry! I thought you guys were gonna guess! It's Crocodile!"
…
It was obvious that the blunette expected a bigger reaction than she got, because after a while, she was staring at the pirates like they were all aliens. Only one of them in particular seemed to be affected by the name that she had just thrown out, and they soon spoke to try and paint a better picture.
"Uh… Y-you wouldn't happen to mean the Warlord Crocodile, would you?" Nami said, shaking in her sandals.
"Yeah! That's the guy! So you do know him!" She exclaimed happily.
And while the name may not have registered with most of the crew, Nami saying the word warlord did strike a nerve in two more of the straw hats, making them very aware of the situation.
"Warlord!? You mean like the Seven Warlords of the Sea!" Sanji practically squealed.
"Oh crap! Which way is this Alabasta place! We gotta get away from there!" Usopp cried.
As the navigator, sniper and cook all panicked and thought about the intense name that they'd just heard, the two remaining Straw Hat Pirates just looked to each other with very confused expressions.
"Uh, are we missing something?" Zoro questioned, completely oblivious.
"Yeah, c'mon guys, what's up?" Luffy added.
Being the one with the most control over his fear, Sanji turned to his two friends in an attempt to cure their ignorance. "Are you two serious!? You don't know who the seven warlords are!?"
Two gentle shaking of heads gave the blonde cook all he needed to know as he facepalmed in displeasure. "You've gotta be kidding me mosshead. You fought one of them for crying out loud!"
"Wait, what!?" Both Vivi and Nami screamed out in shock.
"Huh? The hell are you talking about?" Zoro scratched his head.
"Mihawk dumbass!? Remember when he mopped the floor with you back when Luffy took down Don Krieg!?"
"What!?" Nami yelled out again. "Luffy took down Don Krieg?" No one paid it any mind though, since it had nothing to do with the current predicament. She sure as hell made a mental note of it though. Damn Luffy, that's amazing! I was sure he would be the next guy to take over once Arlong was out of the picture, but I guess not… I sure did miss a lot when I left.
"Wait… So you're saying Hawkeye is one of these war guys you keep talking about?" Zoro asked, more confused than ever.
"What are they Sanji?" Luffy brought up, shifting the focus away from the brain fried swordsman.
But before the cook could open his mouth, Nami took over, very sure in the fact that she could explain it better. "Alright Luffy, Zoro, pay attention, cause I'm only gonna say this once. The seven Warlords of the Sea are a group of insanely strong pirates that have been completely sanctioned by the world government."
"Uhh, what?" the rubber man said, completely lost.
"Sanctioned?" Zoro noted, bringing a bit more to the table than his captain. "So what, they got their bounties wiped or something?"
"Yeah, that's a good way to put it," Nami agreed. "They're so much of a pain to the marines that the world government just offers them freedom from the law as long as they play by some rules. I'm not entirely sure how it works."
Now getting the bigger picture, Luffy jumped to his feet. "Boo! That sounds lame as hell! Why would they just give in like that! That's not real freedom!"
"That's not what matters Luffy," Vivi said, working herself back into the conversation. "What your crewmate says is true, these warlords are incredibly strong, and one of them has their targets set on Alabasta. And that's why I need-"
"Hold on just a sec," Nami interrupted, temporarily taking the wind out of the princess's sails. "As sad and crazy as all of this sounds, what if it's all a bag of goods? I don't know about this Luffy, what do we even do if this is all true?"
"What are you talking about Nami? That's obvious isn't it? We help her out! It's the perfect way to start our journey through the Grand Line! Vivi, is there any way you can prove any of this stuff you're talking about?"
"Of course! Thank you so much! Do you guys have a transponder snail?"
Now seeing that things were taking a turn for the better, Sanji wasted no time in doing what he did best. "Of course my love! Right this way! We have one hooked up below deck."
Vivi got up to follow the cook with an enormous smile on her face, and she just couldn't contain herself when she walked by the rubber man, jumping at him in a tight hug. "I mean it Luffy, thank you. I'm so sorry for breaking your trust."
"Hehe, don't worry about it Vivi, go make that call."
"Right! C'mon Karoo! Oh yeah, and thanks for letting me bring Karoo along!"
The straw hat teen watched as the blunette disappeared down below deck with his trusted cook. If he was reading this situation right, not only was he in for some new friends, but a whole lot of adventure as well.
"Luffy, are you sure about this? I wanna give her the benefit of the doubt just as much as you do, but I still don't know if you should be so quick to trust her again." Nami pointed out, bringing up her fair concerns.
"It'll be fine Nami, everyone deserves a second chance, don't ya think?"
As much as the navigator wanted to argue with his simple logic, she just had no right to. After all, it was this same exact logic that had kept their own friendship intact. And she wasn't about to argue against it with that in mind.
So with a hefty sigh, the orange haired teen gave in and walked toward the hatch that led below deck. "Alright, I know when not to argue, captain. I'll go see if she can give me directions to where she needs to go."
As it turned out, the call that Vivi needed to make was quite an interesting one. After disconnecting from the transponder snail, she quickly explained that their next destination had an ambush set up specifically for pirates, and she was contacting them to call it off. It was certainly something that made a couple of the straw hats skeptical (Zoro, Nami and Usopp) but was overall not that big of a deal.
Another thing that was brought up, was the destination itself. Apparently it was a place called Whiskey Peak, and they were gonna get there and meet up with more of Vivi's allies. The only small kink in their plan was directions.
See, much to Nami's chagrin, standard compasses didn't work in the Grand Line. Some gravitational mumbo jumbo made it so the needle always spun around in a continuous circle, so that was out of the question.
It wasn't the end of the world though, because Vivi had a solution attached to her right hand.
"This is a log pose," the blunette explained, now alone with Nami in the women's quarters. "It's the only way to navigate the Grand Line."
"What on earth? How does this thing even work? Is the needle pointing north?"
"Nope, It's pointing to the next island, which in this case is Whiskey Peak."
"Huh?"
"Yep, when you're out at sea, it just leads you right to the next island. Pretty neat huh?"
"Wait, what do you mean next island? Wouldn't that have to change?"
"Yeah, that's why you stop every time you arrive at an island, so the log pose has time to reset. It's pretty simple, but sometimes the time varies."
"Wow, that's so weird," Nami commented as she took it from the girl gently. After examining the small device more closely, the navigator placed it on her left wrist. "I hope you don't mind if I hold onto it for the time being. I like to keep on top of things around here."
Vivi only giggled at the girl's words. "Of course, keep it. You guys are already doing so much for me."
"Heh, thanks, and yeah Luffy and the other can be a huge pain in the neck sometimes, they're all really good people."
"Yeah, I noticed."
Taking one last look at the log pose, Nami moved for the ladder and up to the hatch. "Alright, I'm gonna go wake up the guys before it gets too late. I need their help to change our course."
"Oooh!" the blunette jumped out of her hammock with another giggle making it past her lips. "Let me go with you! I bet Luffy looks adorable while he sleeps!"
Needles to say, Nami did all she could to not visibly wince at the uncomfortable sentence she just heard.
What was that all about?
Oh? What's going on there? Am I really going there? Guess we'll have to see ;)
