"If there's anything to be said of pirates and treasure, let it be this: The more of it there is, the more trouble you'll have."
~From the Logbook of Bard "Quill" William.
Penny jerked to life, coughing harshly as she turned on her side.
"Awake, awake, awake! The young boy is awake!" sang someone near her. Penny smiled tiredly, exhaustion setting in as she felt the effects of the seawater ebb. A light twinkling sounded by her ear, pleasant and soft like the notes of a flute. It was warm too, terribly warm, and something soft was wrapped around her, cocooning her tightly…so tightly…in fact…Penny couldn't move at all.
She cracked an eye open.
Surely, she had taken some sort of illicit substance by accident and hallucinated.
A beady eyed-spider, at least five meters wide with legs longer than her entire body, crawled over the web toward her. Penny could feel its hairy legs as they wound around her body, brushing against her head and torso.
"Hello." Its fangs clicked together as it spoke, bobbing left and right before its face came up against hers. "Finally awake?"
A sense of calm filled her. "I'd rather sleep if I'm going to be eaten."
"Spspspspspsps, you really are from the Blue!"
"Last I checked…what…um…not to be rude…but what are you?"
"Spider!"
In life, there were moments when something so fantastical happened you had no choice but to abandon all common sense and follow along. She lifted herself slightly, seeing that she was firmly suspended in the air on a cobweb. There was no ship or crew in sight.
"Thank you for saving me."
"Saving you? Spspspspspsps, the trouble's only started. If I eat you now, you'll have a cleaner death than if I let you go. Which will it be?"
"I'm good at escaping death."
A fire in the distance and torches fastened to the twinkling obsidian stone of the mountains rose in front of her, but this place had no sunlight or starlight. Above was darkness deeper than the night sky that smelled of damp earth. They were underground or perhaps inside the belly of the beast that caught them.
There was no sound or echo save for the spider-creature weaving more of the sticky, silk web around her. The smell of the rotten meat repulsed her, but it was accompanied by another decay that sank in the air like a sickness.
"Let me go, please," said Penny politely. "I have a few questions as well. In return, I'll find you some food to eat."
This turned out to be the ideal compromise. A few seconds later, Penny was walking on the thin strands of the web toward the mountainside it hung off of. It was no different from climbing the ropes to the crow's nest.
As her foot caught onto the mountain, she turned and saw the wider landscape for the first time. Giant trees rose toward the cave ceiling, branches stretching out cramped as they had little space to grow. As a result, the ones stuck on the outer edges of the forest twisted back toward the ground. Their leaves were pale white and colorless.
The stone they were on glimmered beneath her feet, glimmering dusk reflecting back at her. Crystal, she realized.
Penny squinted in the darkness, trying to make out anything else but was unable to.
"Where are we?"
"Myrkur."
"Myrkur?"
"It's a place beneath the seabed known as the Land of Darkness."
"How do things grow? Or live? There's no sunlight."
"The fountain."
"Fountain?"
"Do you repeat things all the time?! Yes, the Fountain of Life."
Her heart skipped a beat. Eyes wide as stars, Penny leaned forward. "Do you mean youth? The sailor's tale?!"
"So many questions! I don't want any trouble."
"Is there a map? Or a drawing of this place?" And then, almost as an afterthought, she said, "I came here with my crew; something pulled us out of the ocean and brought us down. Do you know what that was?"
"I know who it was, but the Master who controls him likely ordered it for his game. Your friends are probably there. If they are, then all hope is lost. You're better off dying."
"And the map?"
"Find me food, and I'll bring you to the place where Blue things go."
"I will," promised Penny. "What's your name? Mine is Wendy Pan. I'm a Lieutenant in the World Government's Navy."
"FOOL!" boomed the spider. Before Penny could do or ask anything else, the creature scurried far away, climbing up the stone as if death was chasing it. Penny called after it, but the moist air dampened the sound.
Alone, she looked around once more and shivered.
Myrkur—the name alone implied that there must've been some form of civilization nearby. The tree that had taken them was alive. She wondered what this game meant and who the Master was, but more than anything, she wondered how anyone could live without seeing the sun.
The Fountain of Youth was meant to be a myth, but Penny knew better than to use such a nasty word. People had a way of construing stories into what suited their needs. Things like the Lost City of Gold and the Emerald City—perhaps, there was something like that of this myth too.
Penny smiled, sensing a mystery to uncover. Rolling her sleeves up and abandoning her fear, she climbed a bit higher toward one of the torches and copied it, hopping back down to the same level.
Then she began her descent down the crystal mountain.
Penny giddily abandoned all sense. If there was such a fountain here, she wanted to find it.
Nothing seemed to fill her ravenous hunger for adventure.
The air grew cooler and damper beneath the mountain. The embers of her torch were too small to provide any more light. Her boots sunk into the spongy ground laden with brightly colored mushrooms, grass, and flowers. The wonderfully odd thing was that they all seemed to glow as if millions of fireflies had settled among the grassy hills. Penny squatted down, reaching to pick a few of the flowers. Plucking them, she tucked the blubs into her coat and then let out a startled exclamation of surprise when the stems wiggled and new flowers grew in their place.
"How did you do that?" asked Penny, squatting as she wrapped her arms around her knees. The flowers swayed to the left. Penny's eyes widened further. "Can you understand me?"
They swayed to the right.
"Not the strangest thing I've seen, but certainly up there! I'm Pan. Do you know where the things from the Blue Sea are?"
A flicker of light went through plants.
"Will you take me there?"
All at once, the light went out and back on again.
Penny took the flowers out of her pocket, wiggling her fingers in the dirt and stuck them back into the ground. They perked up immediately, petals flashing with light. "Sorry about that," she muttered. "Us humans take without asking. I won't do it again."
An arrow formed, guiding her down the hill. Penny took her shoes off, carrying them in her hand to avoid squashing the living beings under her feet.
At the crest of the hill, Penny saw a mast split the air above them, reaching high toward the cavern ceiling but not nearly as high as the tallest tree around them. This ship was no ordinary ship.
Giants.
She raced forward, scrambling over the rocks and fallen trees to the graveyard of ships. A rushing river flowed nearby, black as ink and thick like oil. The substance was more mud than water.
The largest ship there was the giants' ship, but there were others in various conditions: rotting and falling apart, broken sterns, scraps of wood centuries old. A proud lion, mouth open mid-roar, formed the figurehead of the giant's ship. The name on the side read Dawntreader in faded golden paint. Penny savored the word, recalling that she had heard it once before.
Climbing up onto the deck without any supplies was a challenge. Penny nearly slipped a few dozen times, hanging only by her shredded fingers nails as she heard the rushing waters below her. Her body started to feel the cold as sweat built up beneath her coat, but the thought of turning back didn't occur to her.
There was no way to prepare the mind for the majesty and size of a giant. They were bigger than buildings. You could sleep in the pockets of their coats with little disturbance. A swing of a giant's sword could split an island in two. Penny felt like an abandoned toothpick on the deck of the ship. Unlike the others, this ship was in good condition, but she suspected it was due to the sturdiness and quality of the giants' craftsmanship.
"How does a crew of giants go missing?" asked Penny to the empty air.
Not empty.
A stillness settled over her as her skin pricked with the realization that she was being observed. She could feel them like little ants crawling in her mind, dull sparks of distress and anger. Her Observation Haki would never reach Yassop's level, but Penny was more in tune with emotions than most.
Penny smiled to herself and ventured forth. Fingers pressing against one another, Penny copied the void in the air, which she called Nothing, and pressed it to the hull door. The door disappeared with a pop as if the universe had let out a slight hiccup.
From a historical standpoint, the ship was interesting. She didn't have an eye for the age of things, but judging from the design of the moth-bitten clothes hanging in the quarters below deck, it was at least 500 years old. A small section of beds was built for humans, but the majority were sized for giants.
Weapon stores and food pantries and baths deep as the ocean. Fabric that swallowed her whole and maps bigger than she was tall. Penny explored every inch of the ship she could.
And then, after what seemed like hours of walking, Penny came across a room, much like a library, but shrunk down to human-size and tucked away behind the cleaning closet. A sign on the door read Records Office in a hurried script. Penny imagined what this human among giants might have been like, tiny with beetle-like eyes and glasses, a proper nerd hired off some port to do work most giants hated due to its tedious nature.
She giggled at the thought. Giants were among the funniest of warriors one could encounter on the high seas, but even Shanks had his hands full against them.
There was a box in the corner of the room which dwarfed all the other furniture, but was obviously full of treasure.
"Khehehehehe," laughed Penny, pressing her hand to her mouth. She'd have to find a way to befuddle Smoker into keeping it. "My luck is really turning around."
Tossing away the skeleton sitting at the writing desk, Penny dragged his chair over to the corner. Traversing a giant's ship was akin to climbing a mountain for every basic task. She scaled up and jimmied the lock open before diving into the chest laden with gold, silks, rubies, pearls, and books beyond measure.
"No good," she muttered, tossing a gold crown onto her head. She dug deeper, legs sticking up in the air. Dust crawled into her throat. A series of hacking coughs shook it free, and then she landed in the chest, wrapped in the moth-bitten velvet, strings of pearls draped over her shoulders, and a book in her hand.
She flipped through the books one by one but found nothing of genuine interest.
"There's something no one's seen in a long time," Penny laughed. She turned the map left and right, spotting the small island in the West Blue that no longer existed on any modern map.
She pocketed several rings, hid a pearl and diamond bracelet in her shoe, and wiggled herself into a velvet coat two sizes too big. All her moving around upended one of the books atop the shelf closest to her. It hit her on the head, seeming to reprimand her for her insolence.
Penny picked up the fallen book.
A logbook.
"Oh, now this is promising."
Penny dusted off the old Logbook and flipped through it carefully. There were all sorts of names she didn't recognize and places that may have been lost to time, but like everything else she touched, memories were hidden in every drop of ink. Penny brought her fingers to her mouth and then carefully laid her hand on the book.
For a brief moment, she caught a flicker of the world five hundred years before her time. She pulled away with a quick gasp, holding her hand to her chest. A laugh escaped her.
"There we go," said Penny with a grin. "No matter how hard they try, they can't keep you quiet, can they?"
Beneath an ink stain that now hid them from the world, the words Joy Boy were written in thick, slanted ink and underlined several times, copied from a Poneglyph in this very place. The crew was gone, and their ship was abandoned before they could escape.
"If they had crossed back over the Red Line, they might have had a chance." She smiled at the book, holding it up to the light. "Don't worry, I'll finish the story off for you."
Joy Boy. The name filled her with a breathless sense of hope. They would be great friends if the man lived in this day and age.
A voice rang out in her head, bold and unwavering: "Long ago, in the Grand Kingdom…there was the Sun, called Nika…."
A pinprick of heat built behind her eyes, her nose clogging up as she kept a decade of tears at bay. Penny didn't care much for what was true, but she knew that finding just one remnant of that time would lead to a story that had never been heard before.
If Penny could summarize her dream in a single sentence, it would be, "I want to tell the world's greatest story." Few were privy to that fact. Beckman and Shanks and Shakky and Rayleigh and…the list was longer than she realized.
Maybe, everyone had a point about her talking too much.
Penny's dream was inherited from a long, illustrious line of poets, authors, and playwrights. The world's most fantastic story was not one that ended with the answers to the Void Century but carried forward through every person and pirate who had come after, chasing after the same treasure until finally Gol D. Roger reached it…but Joy Boy's will would come to its final conclusion in her generation.
Some were content to catalog the world's story in secret. Penny had no intentions of dying as some unknown name. She wasn't someone who would be erased from the pages of the story.
She tore the page from the Logbook and folded it in half.
If the world was a stage, she would be a player like no other.
A rat scurried across the floorboards as Penny climbed out of the treasure chest. She paused, letting it pass.
Laden with treasure, she jingled with every step. Opening the desk drawers up, Penny quickly uprooted everything of value until she came across a map.
As selfish as it was to go after treasure first, she hadn't forgotten that she was brought down here with a crew. The blots of ink were hard to read in the dark, but she could make out the jagged mountains in the distance and scribbles of ink that resembled a forest.
There were five partitions on the map, strangely labeled as Gates of: Deceit, Desire, Dream, Dread, and Destiny
Penny didn't understand what the gates were, but perhaps, they were tied to some sort of religious system on the island. Her finger followed the river line toward a city and tapped against a large X hidden behind the city at the final gate.
If she entered through the forest at the valley of the mountains, she could avoid the first two gates and make a clear path for the treasure.
"There we go," breathed out Penny. She lifted her head and then grimaced at the skeleton. "I'll join you in hell, so don't look at me like that."
"Never thought I'd see a Marine stealing treasure, but there's a time and place for everything," said a girl, leaning against the doorway.
Penny turned quickly, one of the crowns on her head falling off.
The group that wandered in was a familiar one—not that Penny personally knew them, but she had seen them frequently on the front cover of the morning paper. The Kidd Pirates glared at her in all their frightful glory.
Penny looked between them seriously, taking in their leather studded and mesh attire, numerous tattoos, and dangerous weapons. She folded the map, keeping it in sight. What were they doing here, and why was their Captain hiding away?
"Hello! I'm Lieutenant Wendy Pan of the Marines!" She saluted, clicking her heels together as she shook off the coat she stole and the crown. "Apologies for my wandering. I'll accept any demerits that come from my exploration."
Dead silence.
Clearly not a crew built on friendliness.
She clapped her hands together, a delighted smile crossing her face. "You must be merchants! Last I heard, punk rock was a growing genre. It's lovely to see that it's become commercial enough to profit from. Where are you from?"
The Kidd Pirates passed a series of confused and disbelieving looks silently between one another. Some members were missing, namely their horrifically uninventive Captain and masked First Mate.
"It's alright if you don't want to answer. I'm so happy to see other people here! I'll help you guys get out of here and safely back onto the Grand Line."
"Quincy, do something," hissed the other girl. She had long, light hair with a cross embedded in her high ponytail. There was nothing underneath her jacket, but somehow the leather remained steadfast, revealing only her sternum.
Quincy wore a large crown atop her dark, curly hair and had a regal look. Her outfit held a hint of punk and good tailoring that Penny was fascinated by. She wanted to raid all of their closets to look half as cool. Quincy's eyes passed over her before she turned to her crewmate, "Heat?"
They looked at the tall man with shaggy blue hair that was a lovely color and reminded Penny of a robin's egg. His mouth seemed to be stitched together, eyes sunken and gaunt. He, like the rest, also had many tattoos. He crossed his arms over his corseted chest, looking over her quietly.
His voice was quiet and softer than his appearance gave off. "You're here alone?"
"We were sailing away from Alabasta when something dragged us out of the water…or in it. I haven't looked for Captain Smoker yet, but I'm sure he and the others are safe."
"So, you don't know where we are?"
"Given the lack of sunlight and dampness in the air, I'd say somewhere underground, but the funny thing is this place is huge! It must be beneath the sea floor. I found a map!" revealed Penny, holding it up in excitement.
Heat stepped forward, menacing now. These were the faces of pirates who brought fear to the hearts of civilians, cutthroats who could handle little laughter or weakness. Penny thought that they needed a lesson in piracy.
She pulled the map away quickly, a colder look settling over her features as she tucked it into her coat. "Shall we head out together?"
"How did you get the hull opened?"
Penny cocked her head. "There was no door."
Quincy stabbed a finger in the air, glaring at her. "There was! We tried everything to open it!"
"You… you're not merchants, are you?" asked Penny softly, adding a thin waver to her voice as she stepped back. She reached behind her blindly, looking for a weapon. Her hand touched the hilt of a sword that seemed familiar to her, but she couldn't place why.
The sword shook in her hand and then shot through the air, sinking into the wood. In the doorway was the hulking shadow of Captain Kidd.
"A Marine?" he asked, sneering in disgust. "You idiots haven't killed him yet?"
Penny wished she had a private moment to squeal in delight. What better luck could she have asked for? Meeting a member of the Worst Generation and finding a treasure map on the same day must've been written in the stars. Things were looking up ever since she left the Straw Hats behind.
All of them stared at one another. No one moved.
Penny's fingers twitched and then chaos broke out. Quincy dove at her as Heat opened his mouth to let out a stream of fire. Penny ran, kicking off the wall and flipping over their heads. There was only one exit, the one Kidd was blocking, but she could very well break the ship apart to escape.
"He has the damn map!" shouted one of the pirates.
Kidd still didn't move, laughing as Penny was cornered in. A charade. Even in the crowded hull, she had several escape routes planned. As dangerous as these pirates were for civilians, Penny knew the odds were overwhelmingly stacked toward her victory.
"Map?" she asked. "What map?"
"The one you just showed us!"
Penny pulled a paper out of her coat, "You mean this?" She unraveled it, revealing her own bounty poster. This picture had her seated at a bar while drinking a martini in an evening gown. "It's just something to keep me going until I find my crew again. It gets lonely out here."
"Are you fucking with us?" snarled Kidd, moving forward. He ripped the bounty poster out of her hands, gripping her collar tight. "Do you think you're funny, you little shit?"
Penny reached for the bounty poster, "Give that back!"
"I'm going to kill you—slowly. Over and over again, but before that, I'll have you cleaning our fucking shoes with your tongue for laughing—"
"Sounds unsanitary. Saliva doesn't work well as a leather treatment."
Kidd slammed her back into the wall, head bouncing harshly against the wood. A laugh escaped her, unbidden. This was such a classic intimidation move.
"Give me a knife."
"Here," said Penny, slipping one out of her boot. She pressed it in Kidd's outstretched hand, eyes never leaving his face. "It's true, isn't it? Laughter is the death of kings."
Kidd's teeth collided together, throat bobbing as his fury built. He was going to kill her. Penny could read the intent in the air, in his face, but rather than grow afraid, a calm settled over her. She had always performed her best when she had no one but herself to rely on.
Quincy picked up the fallen poster and then gasped. "Captain, this is signed!"
He turned his head, skimming the poster and revealing the autograph on the bottom. He looked to Heat, jerking his head toward the poster. Heat took it and inspected the paper with careful eyes. No one could read his expression, but Kidd understood what his glance meant.
"You're turning out to be a pretty good Marine. You've got a map I want, and you've met Red Hair's rabid bitch. Here's the deal—you answer every question I ask without any smart-ass comments, and I'll kill you quick. If you don't, we'll drag it out until you're begging for death."
Penny shook her head. "I didn't meet her."
"You don't speak unless I tell you to."
Penny leaned close to his ear and whispered, "The only reason I'm letting you hold me like this is because you seem to like it."
Kidd dropped her instantly. Penny swept through the room in the span of a single breath. Her merry laughter echoed as she ran out on deck.
SMOKER
GATE OF DECEIT
"Who's missing?" barked out Smoker. The others steadily got to their feet, blinking away the darkness as they regained their bearings. The ship was tangled above them and twisted in trees bigger than any Smoker had ever seen. Their leaves shone, an electric, glittering green that provided their only light.
Americo, the navigator, answered right away. "Pan."
"Pan?" asked Leon in confusion.
"Pretty sure I heard 'im saying he couldn't swim." Crispin, the only cook on board, moved his wet clothes out of the way, shaking them harshly. Tashigi shot him a glare.
Hiram, a broad-shouldered gunner, shook the water out of his gun and clicked his tongue. "Oh, yeah?"
"Weird," said Leon, looking stumped.
Crispin kicked him a bit. "A Lieutenant who can't swim? He should get demoted."
Silence. The news set in with an explosive force. Americo started pulling off his uniform with the intention of diving back into the acidic waters. Tashigi looked around on the ground for her glasses but only came up with a piece of rubble. Smoker sighed and flicked the top of her head, causing her glasses to drop onto her nose.
"The more you panic, the less useful you'll be," said Smoker, shaking his head. "Right now, none of us have any leads or ideas about where Wendy might be. We'll operate assuming the worst until we have more facts."
He had little idea where they were, but every cell in his body was screaming that something dangerous was near them.
"We need supplies—dry gunpowder, swords, rope, food—pack it up."
"Wait, listen," whispered Tashigi.
Pure silence to the point where it became maddening. Their own heartbeats echoed in their ears. The wind made no sound. Even their footsteps were swallowed by the ground. It was so quiet and unnatural that fear set into his crew.
Tashigi's fingers threaded against her shirt and tore at the hemline, but that made no sound.
"It's—there's nothing."
But, for the lack of noise, there was scent. A trace of roasted meat, ash, and fire was close by. Something moved in the trees overhead, flashing with the same luminescent light that all the plants seemed to carry. They were underground, but Smoker didn't know how.
There were places like Fishman Island, but they had gone into the water and were now out of it.
No sooner had Tashigi spoken, all the trees went out as if by magic. Fire flared in the distance, and it went up in rockets of burning sparks and vanished. They were trapped in a lightless dark and could not see one another, but their breathing carried, echoing amidst all the silence.
A piercing scream rang through the air.
"Who was that?!" shouted Leon.
"There's something there!"
"Where?" asked a new, unfamiliar voice. "You shouldn't trust anything here. Lies are part of the game."
Smoker whipped around, jitte striking the darkness. The figure vanished and reappeared. The leaves of the trees flashed once more, illuminating the darkness. A woman sat among the branches, staring at them with a smile. Her face changed with every blink, but there was no trace of emotion in her expression.
"Who are you?" asked Tashigi. "Where are we?"
"We haven't had new players in a century, but two ships on the same day is something else! You're part of the Navy?"
Smoker inhaled deeply, glaring at the woman. "We're not playing any games."
"You will. The only way Master Morus will give you back your names is if you play."
"Dolos, that's enough." A man walked toward them. He was dressed simply in a dark black suit, with no shirt beneath the tailored blazer, revealing a scarred chest. A cigarette rolled between his fingers, but it remained unlit. His hands, Smoker noted, were clean and soft as a noble's.
In front of him, another woman crawled away, gasping for breath. Tashigi stepped forward, horrified to see that the woman in the trees wore the same face as the one trying to escape. Smoker felt that nauseating worry rise up again.
"Vesper, have you not learned your lesson yet? It's been a lifetime now," said the man calmly. He pressed his foot against the woman's skull, digging the toe of his slipper against her skin. Vesper panted, but no sound left her mouth despite her obvious pain.
"What will I do with you?"
"Kill…me…" she rasped out, hand reaching toward Tashigi. "…please…please…"
"That's no way to speak in front of our new guests." The man dipped his head slightly. "I apologize for not greeting you sooner. Vesper hasn't taken well to the rules and requires more discipline. I'm hopeful that you take heed of her mistakes early on and—"
"Get off her," said Smoker, simply. "I'm not the kind of man who has much patience for that sort of crap."
"Captain Smoker of Loguetown. Yes, I know all about the kind of man you are. Driven by heart rather than logic. We'll weed it out of you. My citizens have been freed from the chains of passion."
"Who the hell are you?"
"The people here call me their Master, but ego is the death of sense. I am Morus."
"Take your bullshit somewhere else. She's with us," said Smoker, standing and approaching the two. His hand reached behind him for his jitte.
"Vesper? Is that true?"
She whimpered and nodded. The man removed his foot, letting it hover above her and watched as she crawled away. Tashigi stepped forward, pulling the woman to safety as she trembled fiercely.
"I tire of you anyway." He smiled and then looked at her, cocking his fingers like a gun. He took the imaginary shot. Tashigi froze and gasped in shock as the woman crumbled away before her.
Smoker moved, hooking his hand under her elbows and dragging her away before whatever power could spread to her.
"What the hell are you?!"
"What did you do to her?!" demanded Tashigi, stepping forward. Smoker gripped her in warning. "Where is she?!"
"So zealous. Perhaps that will change when as you play. Do not disappoint me; I will see you are rewarded."
"Like Captain Smoker said, we're not playing any games," snarled Leon, hand dropping to his sword. "We're getting the hell out of here."
"All that noise you make…." An ugly look took over Morus' face, twisting him into a villain. "You should learn that pain is a constant and let it be." Morus smiled. "The games are simple. Cross each of the Gates of Passion, and you'll live. Fail to do so, and you die."
EIGHTEEN YEARS PRIOR
ON THE DECK OF THE MIDSUMMER'S TALE
"Bard William?" Lucy laughed, balancing a glass of ale in the palm of her hand. She could swim in the drink if it weren't for her Devil Fruit. "Sailed on the Dawntreader with Giants of Elbaf centuries back. He's dead now."
"Okaa-san, why does everyone die?" asked Penny, sulking.
"Everyone but us!"
Penny frowned and looked at her father, who had his head stuck in the newspaper, trying to avoid conversation with anyone and everything.
"He was a record keeper," said Lucy shaking her head. "Not an original thought in his head."
"Is that bad?"
Lucy nodded, a severe expression crossing her face. "It's fine to want to tell the truth, but some embellishment never hurt anyone. Most legends are dull, so you've got to spice them up a bit."
"What's that word?"
"Embellishment?" asked her father. "It's a detail, mostly a lie, added to stories so they're more entertaining."
Penny thought for a moment and then sent him a worried look, "It's bad to lie."
He nodded, brows pulling together as he replied. "We don't live among civilized society, darling." He tucked Penny's hair behind her ear, eyes dancing with mirth.
Lucy laughed, shaking her head. "What's civilized society anyway? Just a bunch of rules and order. There's no passion left in the world."
Her words were likely being said to the wrong audience as Penny had stopped listening almost immediately, waddling away with the thick book in her hands. Lucy turned back to nursing her drinking, trying to annoy—a splash sounded. Penny hung off the portside, peering into the ocean triumphantly as the thick tomb floated away.
Lucy gave a shout, ordering her crew to retrieve it.
"Okaa-san, let's play now!" demanded Penny, holding her hands up to the sky.
END CHAPTER
Notes:
I know original arcs are not everyone's faves, but I figured Penny's character needs some independence before we reunite with the main plot and Straw Hats, so while Oda chose to send them to Skypeia after Alabasta, we're doing the opposite and going underground. :)
