Disclaimer: See disclaimer from Chapter 11.
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Chapter 12
The first stretch of the sea was crazy. Snow, rain, hail, balmy weather, lightning storms, powerful shifting winds, a waterspout, enormous waves, every kind of weather imaginable came one after the other.
Nami and Nojiko were up to the task, though. Nami cast a scrying spell a constant half a kilometer out in front of the ship to monitor upcoming weather, both girls kept a watch on their Log Poses, and as one they commanded the crew in navigating the ship through the weather.
When Nojiko woke up Zoro with a kick and a threat to throw his swords in the ocean if he didn't help, they had plenty of people to man the little ship. It was still a frantic four hours until they finally broke into a single island's "area of influence" over the weather.
As they sailed into the island's port at its only town, the inhabitants came out to welcome them.
"Welcome to Whiskey Peak!" "We love pirates!" "Pirates are here, it's party time!"
"Yeah," said Zoro dryly, "sake trap."
"Don't you mean honey trap?" asked Nojiko.
"Not when they bait it with sake," said Zoro. "Who cares? Let's drink their sake before we fight them."
Luffy, Sanji and Usopp weren't even listening. They had jumped over the side of the ship and already started to party.
"Alright," said Nami after scanning the island. "I'm out of here. I don't want to fight mooks again. Nojiko, the usual, call me when something interesting happens. If things get hairy just remind Luffy to use his Conqueror's Haki. And watch out for poison."
"You got it, sis. I'll see you later."
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Before leaving the island, which was apparently called Cactus Island, Nami teleported to a mountain on the other side and stashed a Log Pose there, placing it under concealment and protection wards. Then she mounted her flying carpet, went invisible, mapped the island, and teleported back to Twin Cape.
She had left six more Log Poses with Crocus, and now she picked one up and headed out on her flying carpet, this time flying above the clouds and thus, the crazy weather. From this high up she could actually see the influence of the various islands pushing against each other in the form of regions of strange weather.
"That has got to be magical in some way," mused Nami. "I highly doubt that something this crazy does not involve magic. Magnetic fields do not influence the weather."
Picking one non-sunny weather pattern, since Whiskey Peak was obviously sunny, Nami flew over it and followed her Log Pose, eventually reaching a different island. She quickly and stealthily mapped it, stashed her Log Pose there, and teleported back to grab another Log Pose.
Nami also used an old magical spell designed to record apparition coordinates in order to plot the location. Hopefully whatever was changing the appearance of the sky and day/night cycle would not extend to messing up the results of this spell. She'd have to compare coordinates and travel times later to find out if they made sense.
She would check on her seven Log Poses periodically, and when one of them reset, she would fly it to the next island along that chain. In this way she could efficiently map all seven routes through Paradise at the same time by sending each Log Pose along one route. Since her flying carpet could reach a speed of 450 kilometers per hour, she would probably finish mapping the seven routes a lot faster than even seven separate ships could.
And now that that was set up, it was time to visit Marineford.
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Marineford was a huge, crescent-shaped, heavily fortified base. It was the worldwide headquarters of the Marines, built completely covering and extending an island not far from Mariejois.
It was also one point of a triangle-shaped water current named the Tarai Current, which flowed in an ever-lasting triangle between Marineford, the Marines' Headquarters, Impel Down, their prison, and Enies Lobby, another stronghold where they held trials – mostly mock trials – for pirates and other criminals who would soon be sent to Impel Down.
Nami appeared above the sea, 50 kilometers away from Marineford in a direction away from Mariejois. She was still wary of this "Im", though she had realized that if he had magic, of the same school as the creator of Reverse Mountain's water gates, he would probably have at least had detection wards over Pangaea Castle considering his paranoia. Still, Nami wasn't one to take completely avoidable risks.
She flew in, again under Haki-enhanced invisibility and Notice-Me-Not charms, and started making a detailed map of the island fortress. Suddenly she had an idea. Nami had noticed that the Grand Line had disproportionately strong ambient magic compared to the rest of the world, as if there were a ley line passing beneath the entire thing. In fact, there probably was. It was enough to support wards. And Marineford contained no magical enchantments or spells other than the numerous Devil Fruit users she detected walking around.
One of Harry Potter's projects in his mid-twenties had been to deconstruct the enchantment on the Marauders' Map. He had found that it was linked to an identification and detection ward in Hogwarts, which provided the names and locations on the map. With a new interest in mapping, Nami had been very interested in her memories of the Marauders' Map, and had at first wondered whether it was possible to make such a map of the entire world, but quickly concluded it was completely impractical. Still, one island was easily possible.
So she quickly teleported to an island where she had found the rock to be particularly suited for making wardstones, and carved twenty-one of them to create an identification and detection ward for Marineford. She carefully snuck in and magically hid the wardstones on the island, laid out in seven wheel-spokes of three stones each, making the setup arithmantically stable and powerful. Such a ward usually didn't need that much power, but she wanted to extend it out to sea for a few kilometers.
Then she retrieved a large scroll of high-quality, durable vellum for the map itself, which she had bought just for such a purpose, and began carefully re-tracing her map in large scale, making separate maps along the scroll for different levels of the fortress. She included gun emplacements, walls and other defenses. She soon discovered a number of badly hidden secret passageways through the island's artificial structure, and of course added those to the map.
Hours later, Nami finished the actual map and finally set about enchanting it. She traced a set of runes on the back of the map in invisible ink, and finally cast a long, complex spell to link it to the ward itself. To her joy, she immediately saw dots appear on the map with names attached to them, some of them moving and others standing still. As was possible due to the detection part of the ward, Devil Fruit users were in blue instead of black, merely indicating that they were carrying a powerful enchantment of an unknown type. Nami herself had her name in gold. She made a note to add concealment from identification wards to her standard set of invisibility and spying spells, just in case.
Finally, she powered up one more part of the runic array on the back of the scroll, and the map folded and transfigured itself into a single piece of parchment that was about half a meter square. You could now display different sections of the map by touching it and sub-vocalizing instructions, zoom into a portion, or if needed, turn it back into a large scroll. It was, after all, a Map designed for Marauders to use when sneaking about, and a large scroll was rather unwieldy. Magic was useful like that.
Now that the map was done, it was time for Nami to get to the actual spying portion of her visit. Obviously, this started with a look at the Map, identifying the locations of all the highest-ranking officers she knew of. Then she climbed through a window near the top of the central building, and headed straight for Sengoku's office.
After a wholesale, and entirely undetected, invasion of the minds of all the Admirals and Vice Admirals, plus the heads of a couple of Cipher Pol groups who were present, Nami headed for Garp's office.
"Now, what to do, what to do… from what I've seen he's an older Marine version of Luffy, a fun-loving mostly-idiot who likes to bull through all obstacles, he's friends with Tsuru and Sengoku, disrespectful of authority including the World Nobles, and loyal. Oh, and he's every bit as strong as any of the Admirals. What to do… eh, something loud and childish."
Since Garp was currently sleeping at his desk alone in his office, she hit him with a sleeping charm to make sure he didn't wake up. Then she dyed his hair and beard bright pink, gave him a lurid makeup job, removed his outermost clothing and dressed him in a bright blue and yellow ball gown. Leaning him back in his chair, she took a picture and left his office.
Quickly using her Map to find Tsuru in a meeting, she planted a subtle suggestion to visit Garp afterwards to shoot the breeze as they often did. Then she vanished out the window on her flying carpet, and soon thereafter teleported back to the Going Merry.
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Nami reappeared floating on her carpet, still invisible, next to the Going Merry. She was not entirely surprised to find a tense situation, with the woman who had been trying to kill Laboon now standing with the Straw Hat crew, and everyone confronting a woman who sat confidently atop the wheelhouse/meeting room on the afterdeck. She had long black hair, a slim hourglass figure, and she wore a Western faux-cowgirl attire complete with a Stetson hat. She radiated curiosity, caution and a deep loneliness, but no malice despite her current tension with Luffy and crew. Oh, and there was a big duck.
Sanji was trying to flirt with her while everyone else stared at her suspiciously.
Was that Nico Robin? Why yes, it was. Lucky day!
Nami rolled up her carpet, put on her tricorne, stepped behind the mizzenmast at the back of the ship, and dropped her invisibility.
"I'm baaack!" she sang out, stepping out from behind the mast, and incidentally, also behind Robin's back. "Hey guys, what's going on?"
Robin immediately whirled about, arms crossed. How had this new girl gotten behind her? Robin was sure she had checked in every direction by spawning eyes with her Devil Fruit powers.
"Oh wow, beautiful girl," said Nami flirtatiously. Her eyes roaming over Robin before she grinned. "Will you go on a date with me, Miss Nico?" Then she winked, but somehow it didn't come across as a flirting wink, more of an "I have secrets to talk about" wink.
Robin was again surprised by Nami's recognition of her. There was something about this girl… something more, beyond the 15 million Beri bounty poster she had, associated with the Straw Hats. She thought for a moment, then decided that the new girl held a lot more potential for interesting information than the Straw Hats.
"Why yes, I do believe I will accept, Miss Nami."
Everyone else onboard the Going Merry was shocked. Nami asking another girl out on a date? They did not see that coming. Well, except Nojiko, who was giggling quietly. And Sanji, who was depressed at having this new lady stolen out from under his nose. And Vivi, who didn't know Nami and was merely watching with interest. And Luffy, who didn't have a clue about this dating stuff. So it was really just Usopp and Zoro.
"Excellent! Meet me at Whiskey Peak an hour before sundown for a picnic atop one of those Cacti?"
"Sounds good to me," confirmed Robin.
Then Nami noticed Sanji's depression. "Sorry Sanji, you snooze you lose!"
This caused Nojiko to burst out into loud laughter. Everyone ignored the fact that Sanji went even deeper into depression and actually sank to his knees.
"Hang on… Luffy, did you destroy Cactus Island's biggest cactus mountain? Seriously? Now I'm going to have to re-draw my map of the place."
Luffy laughed. "Nope! That was Zoro!"
"So what actually has been going on?" asked Nami finally. "New crewmate, Luffy? I take it y'all did more than just partying and beating up mooks in Whiskey Peak? And forgive me, Miss Nico, but what led to you being here, in… I want to say tentative hostility with the crew?"
Nojiko smiled. "Nami, this is Princess Vivi Nefertari of Alabasta. Vivi, this is my sister Nami."
Surprised, Nami doffed her hat and sketched a proper formal bow. "Princess Vivi, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Uh, it's a pleasure to meet you too, Nami. Forgive me, but isn't that a gentleman's bow?"
Nami reddened. "Sorry. My etiquette for dealing with royalty is… kind of messed up."
Vivi glanced at Nojiko, who for some reason was giggling fiercely. "No, no, I don't care about the formal stuff. You are a pirate, yes?"
"Oh good. Yeah, I'm a pirate, and technically an ally of the Straw Hat crew rather than a member. Which makes me a captain!" Nami placed her tricorne hat back on her head with emphasis.
"Okay," broke in Zoro. "I have to ask, why do you keep calling her" – he glanced at the woman who had previously been referred to as Miss All-Sunday – "Miss Nico?"
"Oh, she's Nico Robin, the notorious criminal with a 79 million Beri bounty."
"79 million!" shouted Usopp.
"Yup, but the interesting thing is that despite being a notorious criminal, she hasn't actually committed any crimes that the World Government knows of. A lot like us actually."
"Call me Robin. I do wonder where you're getting your information?"
"A girl has to keep some secrets." Nami smirked at Robin. "So what's going on with the semi-hostility?" She looked between Robin and the rest of the crew.
"She tried to blow up Igaram!" said Vivi. "And she's Crocodile's chief subordinate!"
"Like I said," said Zoro, "Igaram is fine."
Nojiko nodded in confirmation. "He swam back to Whiskey Peak. But that still doesn't answer the question, why did you try to blow up Igaram, Nico Robin?"
Cornered, Robin said, "Well, I didn't really try to blow him up. I made the bomb quite obvious so he would see it when he got into the boat. I wanted to see how your crew would react."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" asked Nami.
Robin stared at Luffy. "I'd say so, yes. Despite these two ruining it with their Observation Haki."
"So you do know about Haki. Okay. So that begs the question… Crocodile? Are we talking about one of the Seven Warlords? And who's Igaram?"
They told her about Baroque Works, Alabasta, Crocodile, and Igaram. About the plot to overthrow the kingdom and the seeding of a rebellion, and about how Vivi had infiltrated Baroque Works to find out about their true enemy. And it came out that Robin had been the one to let Vivi learn the identity of Crocodile.
"Hmm… Crocodile ate the Sand-Sand Fruit, a Logia class that lets him turn into and control sand…. He is unquestionably one of the two weakest Warlords along with Gecko Moria."
"Really, weakest?" asked Luffy.
"Yes, he's a lot stronger than Smoker, but Mihawk could take out Crocodile in like three seconds."
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Robin, looking at Nami. "I wonder how a rookie pirate learned such things about the Warlords?"
Nami just smiled and winked.
"So since you took out Mihawk in less than two seconds, does that make you even stronger?" asked Luffy.
Nami waved him off, "That doesn't count."
"DOESN'T COUNT?!" shouted half the crew.
"I kicked him in the balls. Everyone knows it doesn't count if you kick a man in the balls."
Usopp, Sanji and Zoro froze and paled, reminded of exactly how Nami had ended her short fight with Mihawk.
"Fair point," said Usopp faintly, with the cook and the swordsman nodding in agreement.
Luffy? Being made of rubber, he was immune to blunt-force damage. Yes, even there. Perhaps that was why he feared nothing.
Nami turned to Robin, who was just kind of… sitting there… not knowing what to make of this new information. "I'd appreciate if you didn't mention that bit about Mihawk to anyone. I don't think he'd be happy if that news got around, and it would be troublesome if he decided to come after us."
"Uh… sure, no problem."
"Thanks."
"So I think your crew has things to discuss, and I have some other things to do. I'll meet you at five-thirty for our date?" said Robin, making to escape from this strange crew and the scary, scary woman she had just agreed to go on a date with.
Nami nodded. "Looking forward to it, beautiful."
"Luffy," said Robin. "I'd like to give you this. It's an Eternal Pose to take you directly to Alabasta. The next island along the chain is extremely dangerous, and it's said that no one who follows the Log Pose there ever leaves."
"No thanks," said Luffy. "I'm gonna be the Pirate King! No one tells me where to go."
"That and the sound of danger makes Luffy interested, rather than warning him away," said Nami.
As Robin hopped off the ship, landing on a large turtle that swam away carrying her, Sanji dropped on his face.
"I've been utterly outclassed," he moaned. "My skills in the art of love were completely ignored, and she gets a date with just two sentences! How? HOW?! Ye gods! Have you deserted me? Maybe I should just give up flirting."
Nojiko twitched in amusement.
"I don't know what you mean by this flirting stuff, but no member of my crew would give up on their dreams so easily," stated Luffy with confidence.
"You're right, Luffy!" shouted Sanji, suddenly leaping up and raising a fist to the sky. "For the passion I have for womankind lies deep in my heart, and no mere setback, nay, nothing shall ever stop Sanji, the Knight of Love! What I need… is a teacher! Nami-swan-sensei, will you teach me how to flirt with women?"
He knelt before her in supplication, his fist on his heart.
Nami was poleaxed. She could never, in a million years, have predicted this. She had absolutely no idea what to say.
Vivi was also flabbergasted.
Zoro shook his head at this, jumped up to the foredeck, and started cleaning his swords.
Luffy was grinning.
Usopp was in tears at this display of brave determination.
Nojiko was in tears from laughing so hard. "Come on Nami, accept – HAHAHA! – accept! It'll be – HAHAHAHA! – sooo funny! AHAHAHAHAHA!"
On second thought, Nami did know what to say.
"HELL NO!"
~ Witch on the Waves ~
"Hey Zeff, can you make a picnic basket for two?"
"Nami? A picnic basket? Isn't that Sanji's job?"
"Ah, yeah, usually I would ask him. But I asked this girl out on a date while Sanji was trying to flirt with her." Nami smirked.
Zeff burst into laughter. "Yes, I can see how that would be awkward if you stole her right out from under Sanji's nose! Hah, serves the little eggplant right, when he's always trying to do that himself."
"Great, thanks! How about I pay you with five fish, you name them, from any five places in the four Blues."
Zeff looked at her wide-eyed, and breathed, "The All Blue? You found it?"
Nami nodded. "It's right where we thought, on the other side of Reverse Mountain. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to fish there due to the giant Sea King with hundreds and hundreds of teeth, each of them taller than you, including your hat. I'm sure you've concluded by now that I have an… alternate mode of transportation. So I'll be getting them directly from the Blues."
It should be noted that Zeff had a very, very tall hat.
Zeff sighed. "Well, with any luck Sanji will be strong enough to deal with that by the time he gets there." Then he grinned. "Make it ten and you have a deal."
"Ten, but you'll have to show me what they look like as well as their names and where they can be found, because I don't know much about fish."
Zeff agreed.
When Nami came back twenty minutes later and literally pulled ten fish out of her hat, so fresh they were still wiggling, he told her to come back anytime and he'd make her meals personally.
~ Witch on the Waves ~
"Hi Robin!" Nami met Robin on the edge of Whiskey Peak, which was pretty quiet as most of the bounty hunters were still recovering from the drubbing they had received from the Straw Hats earlier. It didn't help that a few of them had recognized "Miss All-Sunday" and passed on the word to stay out of the way.
"Hi Nami. So is this an actual date, or were you just looking for a reason to talk to me alone?"
"Oh, that depends on what you want it to be," said Nami, holding up her picnic basket as they started walking out towards the mountains. She discreetly raised a Notice-Me-Not and some privacy spells around them. "Why don't we start out by talking history, and we'll go from there?"
"History?"
"You are a student of a rather… forbidden period of history, are you not?"
"I am," said Robin, "and I'm still wondering how you know so much about me."
"It's not so much you that I know about, it's more that I've been prying into World Government secrets and I learned about you from there. For some reason they feel threatened by you."
"Hmm… I wonder who's a bigger threat to the World Government, you or me?"
Nami snickered. "Who knows. Taking down Governments has never been a goal of mine, but considering slavery, and some of the really nasty things they've done, I'm thinking about it."
"Thinking about joining the Revolutionary Army?"
"Ehh… not sure. Thing about the Revolutionaries is, they're always talking about taking down the World Nobles, but I've never heard about a plan to replace them with something better. Revolution for revolution's sake is nothing but bloody."
"True. So history. You've hinted that you're interested in the Void Century for some reason. What is it that you are after?"
"Magic," said Nami.
"Magic?" asked Robin skeptically.
"Oh, come on. Are you seriously saying you don't believe in magic? Devil Fruits are magical."
"Magic is a term used by people to describe things they don't know how to explain scientifically."
"Magic is a term used for a psychically controlled form of energy that can cause a number of well-studied, if obscure, effects that can seem to violate the known laws of physics. So long as those laws of physics don't take magic into account, of course."
"Okay… Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Nami poked Robin on the shoulder. "Devil Fruits are magical." Then she pulled her Den Den Mushi out of her backpack. "These snails are magical." Putting it back she asked, "Have you ever been to Reverse Mountain?"
"Yes."
"Remember the water gates, the big square arches over the water channels on the way up? Those are magical, they're what sends the water up the mountain. Those are even man-made."
"How do you know those aren't simply biology we don't fully understand yet, or a lost form of technology?"
Nami grinned. She set her picnic basket down on the ground, reached into her backpack, and pulled out her rolled-up flying carpet.
"Okay, how did you do that? It's way too big to fit into your knapsack."
Nami unrolled the rug with a flick, making it float in mid-air. Then she hopped into a sitting position on the rug, stuck out her hand, and made the picnic basket float up onto the rug next to her.
"I'm a witch and I can do magic. What say you we take this date up a bit… higher than a Cactus Mountain?" Nami's eyes sparkled in humor.
"It could be a Devil Fruit power. There was a pirate years ago called Shiki the Golden Lion who ate the Float-Float Fruit."
"Oh come on, don't be so skeptical! Can the Float-Float Fruit do this?"
Nami summoned a rock off the ground and transfigured it into a fluffy white rabbit, then handed it to Robin.
Robin examined the bunny for a while, petting it while it sat docilely in her arms. "Okay, I'll bite." She hopped onto the flying carpet next across from Nami.
"So where are you from?" asked Robin. "Is there an island somewhere in the Grand Line full of magic-users? Witches and wizards?"
"That's actually what I want to know," said Nami, implying that she didn't know where she was from. "There are pieces of evidence, like the water gates at Reverse Mountain, that show that at some point in the past there were people who used magic in this world the way I do. I haven't visited a Poneglyph yet, but I suspect they're either enchanted or made out of some magical material, because there is very little that can claim to be truly indestructible the way they do. I'd like to search out the history of magic, find out anything I can about the magic users and what happened to them.
"I am also very much interested in the origin of Devil Fruits. I'm pretty sure they aren't due to biological evolution like the various magical creatures such as Den Den Mushi. Are you aware of any legends or myths of gods or other supernatural beings? Other than the World Nobles' empty claims of being descended from gods, of course."
"Not as such, no," said Robin thoughtfully. "There are people who have been acclaimed as gods, but when you track them down they all turn out to be Devil Fruit users. And there's a fiction series I've been reading that refers to a place that, according to the tale, 'could possibly be the garden of the gods', or a number of other things, but it's fiction."
"So the concept of a god exists, but there are no actual stories about gods? What about the namesakes of the ancient weapons? Pluton, Poseidon, and Uranus?"
"They are rumored to be named after gods, but strangely that's the only reference to those gods I've ever heard of. It's like the stories have been wiped from history."
As the two talked about history, magic, and what other secrets could have been hidden by the Void Century and the Government, Nami directed her invisible flying carpet high into the sky. She finally opened the picnic basket, releasing the stasis charm, and they ate the excellent dinner Zeff had prepared.
Eventually Nami asked, "Robin, what made you join Crocodile? His operation doesn't really seem like your kind of thing."
Robin stared into the sunset for a bit. "A Poneglyph," she said. "There's a Poneglyph hidden somewhere in Alabasta. It's rumored to be under the palace of the king, Nefertari Cobra. Crocodile thinks that Poneglyph contains knowledge of one of the ancient weapons, Pluton. I think it has information on the Void Century."
"Seems like a high price to pay, even for something as important as this."
"Crocodile was going to take over the country with or without my help. It's true that he's interested in Pluton, but he also wants to rule Alabasta. That's why he spent so long implementing a plan to become a popular hero there."
"I see. Well, what do you think about you and me sneaking into that palace and finding that Poneglyph? I'm pretty good at sneaking into things. Magic, you know."
"Really? You'd do that for me?"
"Hey, it's not just for you, you know. I'm interested too. So, tomorrow?"
Robin smiled. "Tomorrow. How fast does this flying carpet of yours go? I have an Eternal Pose for Alabasta."
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Nami quietly entered the girls' room on the Going Merry late after nightfall.
Nojiko and Vivi were still awake.
"Soooo," pried Nojiko. "How did it go?"
Vivi also looked at Nami in interest.
Now this, Nami had seen coming from light-years away, knowing her sister's extreme interest in anything romantic. She pasted a dreamy smile on her face.
"It was a-ma-zing!" exclaimed Nami. "We got on a flying carpet and went up into the sky, just the two of us and this delicious dinner I got Chef Zeff to make. We followed the sunset… and talked about history for three hours."
"HISTORY?!" "NO WAY!"
"You're joking!" said Vivi. She turned to Nojiko. "She's joking, right? No one can possibly talk about something as boring as history for three hours straight! Voluntarily!"
Nojiko examined Nami closely. She shook her head.
"Well she's definitely messing with us, but she's not lying, she really did talk about history for three hours."
Vivi gaped.
"But Nami, please tell me that wasn't all you did," asked Nojiko almost desperately. "Come on, did you at least kiss? How was it? Details, don't hold out on us!"
Nami smirked. "Well… the history was just so fascinating that we never got around to the other stuff."
Nojiko face-palmed. "I'm disappointed in you, sis. Here you are finally going out on a hot date and you don't do anything!"
"But we did schedule another date for tomorrow!"
"Well that's something."
"To talk about more history!"
"Your sister is strange."
~ Witch on the Waves ~
Author's Note: I have been planning that "Sorry Sanji, you snooze you lose!" line since I wrote Chapter 5. Was it as epic as I expected?