When Nami next found consciousness, it felt like she had just emerged from underwater. Her eyes shot open, followed by her entire upper body shooting up into a sitting position. She quickly surveyed her surroundings, seeing mostly darkness around her. She could feel that she was in a bed, however, and the small bits of light there were let her see a wooden floor and some cupboards. The sources of light were a window and a door, both closed and the window having curtains over it. She had all her clothes on as well, except for her shoes.
"Where… am I?" Nami frowned in confusion. This didn't resemble anything she had seen on either the Going Batty or the Baratie. Her right hand suddenly grabbed at her left arm, as she noticed that she didn't have her mechanical arm on. It did get pretty banged up when Perona Castle collapsed. "The others must have taken me here after I passed out… wherever here is."
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pushed herself off it with her one remaining arm. When her sock-wearing feet touched the floor she could see a faint cloud of dust around each. Seems this room had gone quite a while without being cleaned. She moved her feet around a bit to get a feeling for the floor, and bumped into her shoes. She quickly put them on before standing up and walking over to the curtained window. She pushed aside the curtain to look outside, letting light into the room. From what she could see through the window she was on the second floor of a house, overlooking a street with many other residential houses and a few shops. It looked unfamiliar.
"This… feels too pleasant to be real" Nami mumbled. She pushed the window wide open and jumped out of it, landing on the street below. Looking left up the street she could see a group of people in the distance, and looking right down she could see a group that was closer… including several familiar faces. Burgess, Franky, Mozu and Kiwi were the most obvious of the lot, thanks to the sheer size of the former two and the unique hairstyles of the two latter. They were chatting with a group of other people that Nami didn't recognize.
"Well, they don't exactly look like they're in trouble. Hey, everybody!"
Nami called out to them to draw their attention, as she began jogging their way. Heads whipped around to face her, and cheered upon seeing the captain. But as Nami came closer, she suddenly noticed a figure on her right. Despite towering over the buildings, it had been covered by the building she was inside. Not only was this figure terrifyingly huge, she also recognized it! The yellow, horned giant that was guarding the island her, Usopp and Chopper arrived at right before heading to Gecko Islands, where they met Franky. She had no idea why or how the giant monster suddenly had arrived here, or why it seemed to just be calmly sitting in the middle of a town.
Nami was too shocked to even enter a proper fighting stance immediately, instead simply staggering backwards as she waved her arm with a shocked expression. The emotional rollercoaster of going from suspicious, to relieved, to immensely shocked in a few seconds was a bit too much for her to handle a minute after waking up.
"Wh-gh, BIG! G-guys!" she stuttered as she stood on one leg, almost falling over.
"Oh, hey hey hey! Calm down, Nami! It's fine!" Usopp quickly reassured her as he and the rest of the gang ran up to her.
"FINE? Am I the only one who sees that guy?" she yelled back as she jabbed a finger in the giant's direction, her teeth briefly turning pointy while her eyes went white with comical anger.
"No, but…" Usopp began, only to be interrupted by a man stepping forward. He was a fairly average-sized man, with white hair that resembled a crown and a bit of hair on his upper lip.
"Please allow me to explain. My name is Ultraking, I'm the sheriff of Cocoyasi village" the man introduced himself. "I and the rest of the people here are those who lived here before Perona and the Kawaii Pirates chased us off. We moved to a smaller nearby island, within binocular-range of here. When we saw Perona Castle collapse in the distance, we sailed over here to check things out."
"This is where me and Porche grew up!" Chopper excitedly declared as he ran up to Nami, closely followed by his adoptive sister.
"The Baratie happened to pass by soon after we escaped to the island, and helped us set up the replacement town. Some of us went along with the Baratie afterward" Porche continued, patting Chopper on the head.
"Well that's lovely…" Nami smiled sweetly, then slowly raised her hand to point at the giant again. An anger vein began showing up on her forehead, while the giant simply waved at her pleasantly. "But you still haven't explained this."
"Ahem, yes. A while after Chopper, Porche and a few others left, we came into contact with Little Oars Jr. over there. He is the Guardian of the Island of Rare Animals, which Perona often sent her Kawaii Pirates to raid for creatures to smuggle" Ultraking explained, gesturing to some odd-looking animals that were gathered around Little Oars Jr.
"I thought you were with her! I'm so sorry" Little Oars Jr. finally spoke up, sheepishly scratching the back of his head.
"You almost killed us!" Nami yelled at him, shaking her fist at the titanic man. Little Oars Jr. responded by leaning back, waving his hands in front of him defensively and letting out a pitiful whine as his eyes turned into white circles with a second set of white circles serving as tears.
"Lay off him! He's just been so sad that all his animal friends were captured" Franky cried, with waterfalls of tears flowing out from underneath his sunglasses. "It made me so emotional I wrote a song about it…"
As Franky began pulling up his guitar, Luffy stepped forward to talk to Nami at an uncomfortably close distance.
"Hey, let's stop wasting time talking! We're putting together a big party feast to celebrate, and everybody's saying we have to wait for you! So get your butt over there so I can eat" the wrestler demanded, before getting promptly pulled away and getting into a shouting match with Burgess.
"You know… I'm not going to argue with that" Nami sighed, feeling the emptiness in her stomach calling out for food.
While Nami had been unconscious, the Baratie had arrived on the island as well. Since the Kawaii pirates were gone there was no longer a risk, and with the cooks' help the feast became a true spectacle of delicious food. Mountains of mouth-watering grub, building-sized vats of sake to keep the town and Little Oars Jr. sated, and the celebration of an entire archipelago of people getting their homes back.
"Aaaand… there. All fixed up" Franky grinned as he tightened a final screw. He stepped back, letting Nami move her robot arm around a bit.
"Feels like new. You're a marvel, Franky" the orange-haired captain grinned, looking at her metal hand before clenching it into a fist.
"Aw, you're gonna make me blush~" Franky laughed as he struck a silly pose.
"Now then…" Nami turned to the table in front of her, slamming a huge empty mug against it with her human arm. Around, on and under the table were a large number of people, many of whom were more than twice as big as Nami, as well as mugs and spilled booze. They were all almost or fully passed out, the few still clinging to consciousness doing so with great difficulty. "Who's ready for another round?"
Nearby, some villagers were whispering to each other as they watched Luffy in disbelief and a bit of fear. The masked wrestler was practically in a whirlwind of food getting flung into his mouth by his own greedy hands, as he scurried about to devour as much as he could.
"He's eaten more than five people combined!" "I'm afraid if I get too close, he's gonna start eating ME." "But… he did cook even more food than he's eating, and he is part of the group that defeated the pirates, so… I guess it's ok?" "His bite strength is insane!" "He's not going to… oh he is. That kid's going to have the stomach ache of legends."
Meanwhile, Usopp was telling a group of impressed listeners how he and the others took down the Kawaii Pirates. Without any embellishing at all.
"So after I crushed the giant possessed armor, Perona decided to summon the Devil, and-"
"Were you scared?"
"Scared? Me? The Great Warrior Usopp is never scared! Why, this one time I…"
Mozu and Kiwi were sitting nearby, calmly enjoying some turkey as they listened to Usopp's ramblings.
"I think by the end of the night, he'll be the one who taught Emerald Rouge everything she knew." "She was dead before he was even born." "Think that's gonna stop him?" "Good point. Maybe he invented time travel, but had to give it up to save a princess."
Evening turned to night, and the stars provided a nice backdrop to the party still raging below. Hours passed, and slowly but surely more and more people retired for the night. Even still, those who remained kept the mood and liveliness up. Even Little Oars Jr. was dancing with his animals.
Despite the already absurd amounts of food he had eaten, Luffy was still chowing down on the buffet. Somewhat less ravenously than before, but still significantly more than most would consider impolite. The other partygoers gave him a wide berth, not courageous enough to test how territorial he was of the food nearby. One in particular, who had just arrived from the docks, looked at him a bit weird.
"Hey… you're with the Baratie crew, right?" he asked. After getting a noise in response that could be interpreted as someone saying yeah with an overly full mouth, the partygoer pointed at the docks. "I think they're leaving without you."
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!"
A large crowd of people had gathered at the docks, with the Straw Hats, Mozu & Kiwi in the front. All heads turned towards Luffy as he screamed at them, charging forward as fast as he could. Meanwhile the Baratie was sailing away, with the cooks all gathered on the deck… barring Luffy.
"W-wait, Luffy? Burgess said you were on the ship!" Nami asked bewildered, stepping aside to let Luffy run to the edge. She was holding Chopper, who was crying bittersweet tears of farewell. He looked just as confused as everyone else at Luffy still being there.
"HEEEY! YOU'RE LEAVING ME, YOU ASSHOLES!" Luffy yelled at the top of his lungs, jumping in place as he waved his arms. The cooks were all facing away from him, arms crossed stoically. Only Porche was facing him.
"What are you whining about? You got what you wanted" Burgess yelled back, still not facing him.
"When did I say I wanted to be abandoned?!"
"You wanted to join their crew, didn't you? Then do it."
"H-huh? Then…" Luffy immediately began calming down, lowering his arms.
"Don't decide things like that on your own!" Nami yelled at Burgess. "I mean, he's welcome to join of course, but you could at least ask before deciding to leave him!"
"He's your problem now" Burgess replied dismissively with a shrug.
"You could at least look at him when you're saying goodbye!" Usopp called after the Baratie chefs, who were still facing away.
"They just don't want to show they're crying. They barely held back when saying goodbye to Chopper, having to leave Luffy too is too much" Porche yelled back, smiling with tears in her eyes.
"SHADDUP YOU'RE CRYING" Burgess immediately yelled in a choked voice.
"At least I have the guts to admit it" the blue-haired wrestler chef giggled, letting her tears flow freely.
"Ah, I see" Luffy, completely calm with his hands on his hips.
"Wait, you're fine just like that?" Nami asked with a raised eyebrow.
"BYEEEE! SEE YOU GUYS LATER! LET'S MAKE A DELICIOUS DINNER WHEN I GET BACK, OK?" he yelled as the floating restaurant continued traveling out to sea.
"I'LL MISS YOUUUU" Chopper added.
At that point, any pretense the cooks had of trying not to cry evaporated like a water drop on a hot plate.
"We sailed there because we were a crewmate short, and sail away with a crewmate extra" Usopp idly commented while staring at the sea. At his left was Luffy, the two of them sitting on the railing of the Going Batty and fishing to pass the time.
"Just about the best outcome we could have hoped for" Nami shrugged, her robot arm laying on a table in front of her. She was assisting Franky as he was attempting to add another upgrade to her metal limb. Both were wearing a pair of goggles to shield their eyes, since the upgrade involved a significant amount of gunpowder. Nami and Franky had had a long discussion about the exact amount, with Franky pointing out the value of additional firepower while Nami countered with the fact that she had to carry that firepower in her limb.
Chopper was standing on a barrel so he could steer the ship, when he suddenly spotted something flying towards them in the sky. A bird of some kind, growing bigger and bigger as it drew ever closer.
"Hey, it's the News Coo" he alerted the others, as a seagull with a hat and two bags flew into view. One bag had newspapers sticking out of it, while the other made the jingling sound of coins. Nami waved at the bird, signaling for it to circle down and perch onto the railing.
"You don't happen to have a cute girl discount, do you?" Nami asked the seagull, while fluttering her eyelids. The News Coo responded by raising its wings in preparation to take off. "Ok fine fine, I'll pay the full price."
"Did you just try to seduce a bird?" Usopp deadpanned, as a slightly let down Nami put 100 Belly into one of the News Coo's bags and retrieved a newspaper from the other.
"Hey, you never know" Nami shot back, walking away from the railing while the News Coo flew off. As she unfolded the newspaper a piece of paper slid out of it, catching some wind that blew it into the air and into Usopp's hand. He decided to take a look at it, and…
"HUH?! That's crazy! Nami, you really should look at this!" Usopp shouted, gripping the paper with both hands. Naturally, Nami got quite concerned by Usopp's reaction and immediately walked up to Usopp's right to take the paper… only for it to get snatched away at the last second by Luffy.
"Hey, no fair! What about me?" Luffy frowned, while Nami walked around Usopp and to Luffy's left to try to grab the paper… only for it once again to be snatched away at the last second, this time by Franky.
"Well, ain't this interesting!" he grinned. "This ought to shake things up a bit!"
He then glanced down to see Nami fuming, and wisely decided to hand over the paper to her. The orange-haired captain grabbed the paper with her one hand, and looked at it to see her own face staring back. She had a silly grin on her face, judging by it and the background the photograph was taken during the recent feast.
"H-huh? This is… my bounty poster?!"
"Not just that, check this out" Usopp said as he pointed at the number beneath Nami's picture.
"30,000,000 Belly?!" she exclaimed, her eyes widened in shock. That kind of bounty was very high for the East Blue, especially for a first-timer.
"Uuurgh, I also want a high bounty!" Luffy whined, waving his fists in the air as he stomped his foot impudently.
"We haven't even done anything since you joined" Usopp deadpanned with half-lidded eyes. "Besides, if anyone here besides Nami is going to get a high bounty, it will obviously be me!"
"Mmh, really not sure how to feel about this" Nami sighed, rubbing her forehead. "On the one hand, getting a high bounty is an inevitable step to becoming Pirate Queen. But on the other hand-"
"You don't have an other hand" Luffy stated plainly. Nami stopped talking and just stared at Luffy for a few awkward seconds before she continued.
"On the other hand, I'm not really feeling too good about getting this kind of attention this early. Would have liked staying under the radar a bit first, but whatever. Done is done, let's just hope no overly strong bounty hunters or Marines come after us."
At a Marine base in a certain town…
Footsteps echoed through the hallways. A Marine recruit was jogging along, carrying a stack of bounty posters. The Marine captain stationed at this base had requested to immediately be informed of new bounties, though few wanted to be the one actually handing the information over. He had gotten a reputation as a very scary man, even if he never actually hurt any Marines or innocents. Though after seeing him in combat, it was hard to rid one's thoughts of the terrifying monster he seemed to embody.
The recruit stepped into a harbor at the back of the Marine base. This particular harbor was exclusively for Marine ships and other vessels that had business directly with the Marines, with other harbors on the island allowing civilian ships to dock. However, ships weren't the only thing found in the waters in the Marine harbor. The Marine recruit stepped out to the edge and peered into the water, attempting to spot something underwater.
Soon enough a silhouette became visible among the waves, quickly growing bigger before something emerged from the sea. A humanoid figure leaped up from the water and onto the docks besides the recruit, forcing him to take a few steps back to avoid getting splashed. The man who emerged from the waves stood up straight, showing how tall he was. Over two and a half meters tall, and very muscular. The first sign that this man wasn't human was his skin, a greyish light blue. Next were the gills on his thick neck, and his most notable facial feature: his exceptionally long nose with saw-like spikes on either side.
Marine captain Arlong wore an unbuttoned white cabana shirt with a light blue pattern of the Marines' seagull icon spread across it, as well as brown shorts, a blue sash around his waist and a brown ushanka on his head.
"I'm guessing those are for me then?" the tall fishman asked with a slight grin, looking down at the stack of bounty posters the recruit was holding. The recruit gulped softly, then stood up at attention.
"Yes sir! Mostly updates on existing bounties, but there is one standout rookie. 30,000,000 Belly!" the recruit declared in the bravest voice he could, holding up the stack of posters to the giant shark-toothed man.
"30,000,000? For a rookie?" Arlong asked incredulously, looking at the photo of a smiling girl in a straw hat. "'Straw Hat' Nami… "
"Reports state she's fought and defeated several dangerous East Blue pirates, including, most recently, 'Ghost Princess' Perona and the Kawaii Pirates" the recruit explained.
"Perona? She was on the same crew as Sengoku, the Warlord" Arlong mused. Suddenly, he frowned a bit as he held the poster closer to his face. "What's that blue speck?"
"Oh yeah! I'm famous! Oh yeah! I'm super!"
Franky was standing on a table, doing a hip-shaking dance that left Nami covering her eyes and shaking her head.
"It's just your pompadour!" Luffy yelled at him, gritting his teeth.
"And you can barely see it!" Usopp added, holding up the poster and pointing at the small tuft of blue hair at the edge of the frame.
"Too super to hear the whining of jealous people! Oh yeah" Franky grinned, continuing his dance without skipping a beat.
"WHY YOU-"
"Uh… hey, guys?" Chopper weakly called out, failing to get the attention of his much louder crewmates.
"HEY!" Nami yelled loudly, immediately making everyone fall silent. "Chopper wants to say something."
"Um… yes, I just wanted to say that we're almost at Loguetown" the diminutive mink stated, pointing straight ahead. In the distance, the pirates could see an island almost entirely covered by the town upon it. Loguetown, the last stop before entering the Grand Line. And the place where the Pirate Queen, Emerald Rouge, was born… and eventually met her end.
