"He says 'You must fight and defeat me, or take your ship off this shore, cowards!'" Chopper said.
The man-reindeer was translating for a kung-fu dugong–a species almost as comfortable on land as in water that wore a turtle shell and matching helmet–on the sand that'd started barking once the Merry reached the shore.
"Sanji," Usopp said, clapping the cook's shoulder. "You're up."
There'd been a brief interval of awkwardness after Ace disappeared into the horizon against a backdrop of totaled Baroque Works ships. Usopp would've preferred confronting Ace about Blackbeard privately, but there hadn't been a natural moment for it. And pulling him aside to force a sidebar would've been infinitely more awkward.
Granted, some of that reasoning might've been post-decision rationalization. Usopp hadn't exactly planned for how he'd warn Ace; having only met the guy once across two lifetimes, the improvisations that he'd been using with his nakama weren't quite as much help, either. Honestly, the sniper had channeled a fair bit of pent-up anger from his first round into his outburst.
Thankfully, Vivi–sweet, tactful Vivi–had diverted attention away from him before Luffy could act on his curiosity.
("Hey Usopp, what"
"We should keep moving, everyone; Ace-san took care of the Navy, but we're still short on time.")
As with anything not immediately relevant to their present adventure, Usopp's little warning/threat/whatthefuck had been put on the back burner of everyone's minds.
"You do it," Sanji retorted, poking the sniper with his elbow. "You're the shitty psychic."
"For the fifteenth time, Haki is not ESP," Usopp said. "Besides, do I look like a martial artist?"
"Luffy won." Zoro noted dryly. He unceremoniously dropped the anchor.
"Wait," Vivi said. "Winning is worse than losing!"
In the time it took for the princess to explain how the dugong's code of honor worked–that is, becoming a disciple upon defeat–Luffy managed to surround himself with roundabout two dozen students.
"Luffy, quit messing around," Nami chided, pulling on more practical garb for crossing the desert than a dancer's outfit. "They can't come with us!"
"Why not?" Luffy pouted, enamored with having creatures that followed his every move.
"Dugongs aren't built for travel in desert conditions," Vivi said. "They're amphibious, but they can't cope with the high heat and arid climate away from water for that long."
"Hmm," Chopper hummed. He blinked and his little nose twitched. "Say, which one's the food bag? I have an idea."
"Hold that thought," Usopp interceded, struck by another lucky flash of inspiration. "Let's try this first. Oi, Captain."
Usopp beckoned Luffy over and whispered in his ear; the dugongs watched the exchange with rapt attention.
"Hm. Mhm. Ah! I see!" Luffy plopped a fist against his palm. He spun around and addressed his pupils. "Yosh! You guys, I got an important mission for you!"
"Ark!" They chorused in answer, standing at attention.
"Protect our ship while we're away! Think you can handle that?"
They all threw curled flippers (fists? Fins?) up and barked.
"'Yes sir!' Is what they said." Chopper relayed.
"Nice save." Nami said as they headed inland, a squadron of dugongs at their backs waving them off from the shoreline.
Usopp shrugged.
"Not hard to imagine wanting to impress Luffy," he said. "Especially if he's your sensei."
Sanji paled.
"The phrase 'Luffy-sensei' is banned from now on." He declared with a shudder.
"Hey, Vivi," Luffy said, the dugongs all but forgotten with their trek properly underway. "Is that rebel guy really here?" He twisted his neck around in all directions, puzzled by the absence of other people.
During the brief trip from Nanohana's port up the river, the princess had gone over their game plan.
("The rebels have made their base at an oasis called Yuba; if I meet with their leader, I can reason with them. I'll send Carue on ahead to the capital with a message for my father. Once he knows what's happening, he'll have justification to keep the Royal Guard from responding to the rebels; I will not let my countrymen kill each other!")
It wasn't a very inclusive plan, but there hadn't been any discussion of alternatives.
"Yuba's half a day's walk from here, Luffy-san," Vivi said as they passed the sandy threshold to the town. "We've docked by the green city of Erumalu."
Luffy blinked at her, turning a frown at the abandoned, dilapidated buildings and dunes that'd long since buried any kind of roads. He practically had a neon question mark floating over his head.
"Doesn't look very green."
The princess, usually so accommodating to their curiosity, paused a while before speaking. Usopp clenched his jaw, already aware.
"It used to be," she said wistfully. "The rain here used to be enough for the city to sustain itself. Now, the drought in this region has even affected the river's current and volume; dugongs are native to the ocean, they normally wouldn't be on these shores. Seawater's encroached where the river used to flow; that port used to be in freshwater."
Chopper, who'd been watching Luffy gleefully unearth a skull from the sand, shuddered and jogged ahead of the captain.
"That other port looked okay, though."
"Nanohana gets water from a neighboring oasis," she explained. "We're called a desert kingdom, but Alabasta had never suffered from drought prior to three years ago. The only place that's had any rainfall," she said, taking a shaky breath. "Is Alubarna, the capital. People called it the King's miracle, right up until an incident two years ago."
Vivi described, in broad terms, how a shipment purportedly ordered by the royal palace got damaged after being offloaded a ship. The contents of the shipment spilled into the street, and the people recognized it as–
"Dance powder?!" Nami exclaimed heatedly.
"What's that?"
Vivi bit her lip, turning her eyes down to her feet. Nami, mouth set in a thin line, answered for her.
"Basically," she said. "It creates artificial rain."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Chopper asked, giving the princess a concerned glance.
"The scientist who invented it thought so," Nami said. "Since it'd been developed in a country that never received any rain. There's an issue with it, though; one that prompted the World Government to ban dance powder outright."
She raised an illustrative finger, pointing at the clouds overhead.
"It doesn't actually create rain–it steals it."
A weighted beat passed.
"Joy at the cost of a neighbor's misery." Usopp summarized tersely.
Nami nodded.
"Hey, Vivi," Luffy gasped, pointing at the princes. "Your Dad's evil!"
"Stupid!"
Thwack.
Sanji's heel met the rubber boy's skull.
Bonk.
Repeatedly.
"He was framed, dumbass! Vivi-chan could never have a bad guy for a father!"
"More bags of dance powder," Vivi said with a sigh. "Were later discovered in the palace. No one knows how they got there, but…"
"It's only natural for people to suspect the King," Zoro said. "Since it stopped raining everywhere else."
"He caused all of this," Vivi said, kneeling in the sand and carefully lifting another very human skull from the sand. Tightly leashed anger put a tremor in her voice. "The people's hunger; the faith that's turned to resentment; all the lives that've been lost."
Her shoulders shook.
"It's all Crocodile's fault!"
Usopp ground his teeth. None of the others dared speak.
"I–!"
Kroom.
Everyone looked up in time to see an old tower crumble to the ground; the culprits marched back to the group in tandem, respectively puffing a cigarette and rolling a rubber shoulder.
"Kids." Zoro scoffed.
"What're you doing?" Nami asked, only half her heart in the scolding question.
"Venting." Usopp said.
He understood perfectly; his trigger finger was itching like a bastard.
Luffy flexed his hand, knuckles cracking.
"Let's move."
"Haaaaah…"
Luffy gasped, tongue lolling out from a hanging jaw. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, dragging it forward with each pace.
"Heeeeeh… Haaaaah… Huuuhh…"
"Luffy, quit panting like that," Nami scolded, fanning herself with her hand. "It's exhausting just to look at you."
"Too hot," Chopper groaned, splayed out on a sled Zoro was pulling. His fur, suited to the constant cold of Drum, left him a victim of the arid heat. "Can'h… moov."
"You seem fine, Vivi-chan." Sanji noted.
Compared to the rest of them, the princess appeared virtually unfazed by the temperature. Even Zoro, who thought of the situation as another sort of training, and Sanji, who refused to speak one word of complaint before the swordsman did, were looking well cooked. Usopp had the experience of another lifetime to call on, and Vivi was still more composed than him.
"I'm used to the heat," she said. "If anything, it just feels like home."
"Water…" Luffy gasped, reaching for the oversized straw that came installed in the barrel they'd bought in Nanohana.
"Just a sip, Luffy," Nami said mildly. "We have to ration it out."
Shloorp.
Luffy's rubber cheeks ballooned with the sudden addition of at least several quarts of water.
Wham!
The sum of which sprayed across the sand as Nami and Sanji belted the back of Luffy's head.
"That was at least thirteen gulps!" Nami barked.
"You just took your next five turns at the water," Sanji shouted, snatching at the barrel. "Hand it over, shitty rubber!"
"You made me spit it out, that doesn't count!"
"Don't fight!" Vivi cautioned. "You'll wear yourselves out!"
Usopp blew out a breath and kept trudging in tandem with Zoro; the scuffle didn't last long, and either way, no part of the Monster Trio would ever be too tired for roughhousing. He pulled up the much smaller, personal barrel of water he'd gotten for himself. Nami had given him an odd look, but he'd used his own money, so she hadn't taken issue with it either.
He yawned the second the straw left his lips.
For some reason, drowsiness had decided to visit with exquisitely poor timing.
"Hey, Sanji," Luffy said, perking up. "Let's eat the box lunches you made!"
"When Vivi-chan says we can." Sanji sighed, tugging at his collar; the brief outburst couldn't have worn him out, but it couldn't have helped with staying cool, either.
"Hey Vivi," Luffy said seamlessly. "Let's eat; I need more energy to keep walking!"
"But," she hedged. "We've only walked a quarter of the way to Yuba!"
Luffy frowned at her.
"Don't you know the old saying 'When you're hungry, you should eat'?"
"That is not a saying," Usopp argued in a paper-flat monotone, stifling another yawn. "You said that, just now."
Vivi smiled sympathetically.
"At the next crags, we'll take a break." She conceded.
Usopp cast a glance out in front of them at the endless, undulating dunes that stood as high as a thousand feet. Even he couldn't see any rocks; the princess had handled their boy captain very diplomatically.
"Okay!" Luffy declared, jogging a few paces ahead of the group; he spun on his heel and threw clenched fists into the air. "Let's hurry on to the crags! Whoever wins rock paper scissors has to carry everybody's stuff!"
"Don't just randomly decide things!" Nami chided.
"What does one have to with the other?" Usopp murmured.
"Shouldn't the loser have the carry everything?" Sanji wondered aloud.
"Let's go," Luffy said, fist overhead. Startled, all save Chopper and Vivi scrambled to ready their hands; Usopp dragged himself forward to participate. "Jan! Ken! Po!"
"Wait–!" Nami sputtered.
"Oi, you threw yours after the rest of us did!" Zoro accused.
"Hahahaha! I won!"
"Dumbass."
Usopp barely tracked the conversation, struggling valiantly against heavy, heavy eyelids.
"Heavy."
Luffy's groan floated into Zoro's ear from thirty paces back; a glance over his shoulder showed the captain trudging at a tedious pace, pulling a sled with everyone's luggage piled on top of it.
"Heavy and hot… I won, so how come I'm pulling everything?"
"You literally set yourself up for this." Sanji said.
"Luffy," Nami said with a coy smile and wave. "Make sure you don't drop anything~!"
"How come Usopp gets to nap?" Luffy groused, referring to the unconscious sniper that lay sprawled over the supplies.
Seeing one of their own suddenly all but crumple to the ground had been alarming; so much so that even Chopper, miserable as he was in the desert climate, mustered the strength to check on the marksman.
(Whump.
"?!"
"Hey, Usopp!"
"Aaah! CALL A DOCTOR!"
"That's you, moron!"
"Ah! Right!"
"What happened? Heatstroke?"
"Breathing's normal. He's warm, but not feverish… he's just asleep from what I can tell."
"Oh. That's, um, good?"
"Oi. Shitty tengu, get"
"Don't!"
"Vivi-chan?"
"He obviously needs the rest.")
The princess had been notably quieter since then, maintaining a distance a few feet ahead of them. Zoro didn't think she needed to be concerned, though he understood why she might've been. He'd probably seen Usopp asleep a grand total of twice, including today.
"At least now we know the tengu's human." Sanji said in a half-joking tone.
"You of all people don't get to say that," Nami said with a huff. She shrugged. "It was bound to happen eventually with the hours he keeps. There are better places to pass out, but at least he's not hurt."
"Um."
Chopper spoke up, sounding guilty.
"He might've had a little help," he said haltingly. "I, um, I mixed in a little medicine with his drink."
Zoro paused to look back at the doctor, eyebrow cocked.
"You spiked his water?" Sanji practically snarled.
Chopper flinched, sputtering.
"N-no! It was just a little sleep aid, I swear," he said, words hastily spilling out. "It should've been diluted enough that he'd just feel gradually more relaxed until nightfall; I didn't think he'd just collapse!"
"He's not the best with depressants or booze," Nami mused aloud. "That, plus how exhausted he usually is, might've been a bad combination."
Sanji did not seem at all moved. Chopper shrank back from the cook's glare.
"I was trying to help," he said meekly. "I just–he's always awake before anyone else and he's the last in bed every night; he doesn't nap like Luffy or Zoro, either."
Sanji sighed.
"I get it, but don't do that again," he said. "If you have to mix in supplements or whatever else into someone's food, tell me first."
"Okay."
Zoro hiked the rope attached to Chopper's sled higher up his shoulder and resumed walking.
"If only his sleep schedule was the weirdest part." Sanji muttered.
"Actually," Nami said after a second. "Have any of you noticed anything off about Usopp?"
Zoro cast a side-eye at the navigator.
"Little discrepancies, or things that don't add up?"
"How do you mean, Nami-san?" Vivi asked, drawn back a little closer to the group.
Zoro set his mouth in a thin line; he avoided giving any hint that he might engage with the others. Idle conversation was one thing, but they were treading dangerously close to gossip about a crew mate.
"Like," Nami said, drawing out the word. "After we left Loguetown, we were all skeptical about Reverse Mountain, right? He barely reacted when I explained it, though."
"So what," Zoro asked, interjecting in spite of himself. "He's probably got solid nerves."
"Does he?" Nami retorted. "He freaked out when we entered the Calm Belt; granted, any sane person would, but then he was all blasé about Laboon." She rolled her eyes. "Don't get me started on how he welcomed Brogy at Little Garden."
"Usopp-san," Vivi said slowly. "Usopp-san was behaving strangely after the agents captured us. And when Nami-san was hypnotized, he targeted Miss," she paused, eyes darting to the idiot cook. "I mean, the hypnotist before they could cause more trouble. I suppose he might have made a deduction through process of elimination, but…"
Zoro still didn't comment, even if he did have a couple questions of his own. He wouldn't condemn the discussion, but he didn't exactly condone it, either.
"On Drum," Vivi continued. "While we were scrambling to find a doctor, Usopp-san suddenly just… ran off on his own. I didn't see him again until we all arrived at the castle with Mr. Bushido."
"He climbed up the ropeway," Chopper murmured. The sled rattled with a startled motion. "Wait, does that mean he knew where to find Doctorine's treehouse? Half the villagers don't even know."
Vivi shrugged.
"I wasn't there for that," Sanji said, blowing smoke. "But he does seem prone to random outbursts of temper."
Zoro grunted again, trying to dismiss the topic despite the gaze he could sense Nami aiming at him. All told, none of them had cast any aspersions toward the marksman. The overall tone had been curious at worst; hardly anything as malicious as wanting to talk behind his back. Nothing damning would come out of Zoro throwing in his two cents.
Getting in the last word over the cook didn't hurt, either.
"He did say something," Zoro said. "At Whiskey Peak; made me wonder if he already knew about Baroque Works."
Vivi blinked. Nami frowned.
"Could he have been a bounty hunter at some point?" She wondered aloud.
"If he was," Zoro said. "I've never heard of him."
And if he had been a bounty hunter, someone with Usopp's aim and versatility in a fight would've warranted Zoro's notice. A moment of silence passed again. Of course, the cook couldn't resist breaking it.
"I maintain my theory that the tengu is psychic."
Zoro scoffed.
"I'm sure that'll pan out. Dumbass."
"You got a problem, marimo?"
"Don't start, you two," Nami warned. "It's too hot."
"Oh!" Vivi exclaimed, lifting her arm to point into the distance and raising her voice. "I see crags!"
Seven seconds later, Luffy had torn off ahead, leaving them watching the clouds of sand he kicked up in his wake.
"Now he's energetic." Nami sighed.
"Oi," Sanji said in a flat tone. "Did we secure Usopp to that sled?"
A beat.
"Nope." Zoro deadpanned.