4. We Need A Chef Around Here

The last day had been pretty smooth sailing. Good weather, Nami had put us on a strong current for a couple of hours that gave us just a little more speed, and the Going Merry practically sailed herself. As such, most of the day had been spent with the crew telling me about how they had joined. Luffy even went into the proper details about how he had gotten his Straw Hat from Shanks. The fact that a YONKO of all people sacrificed an arm for a scrawny kid in the 'weakest ocean' said that whatever adventures we were going to face that I had forgotten were going to be downright EPIC. That kind of origin story demanded nothing less.

Sleeping in a hammock that night on a shifting ship at sea rather than on an island or said ship when beached took a little getting used to. It didn't help when Luffy wound up shifting to hang sideways off of his hammock and with his body being rubber, his head had drooped a bit bending his neck at the base in a way that made him snore like a stuttering engine. Still, the kid was light enough that once I brought his head back to the rest of his body it was easy to shift said body back into proper hammock sleeping position.

Today was another good day weather wise, filled with clouds sure, but the kind of wispy white ones that would have Naras sighing in contentment as they lounged on a hill side for hours. At the moment though, I wasn't paying attention to them. Instead, I was leaning against the Mizzen Mast watching as Luffy loaded a cannon, Usopp standing next to him. When they lit the fuse, I called out "Fire in the hole!" Nami quickly joined me in slapping our hands over our ears. As expected, the cannon let out a loud blast, waking up Zoro who had been sleeping on the roof of the kitchen. A pillar of water erupted at least a hundred yards from the rock pillar that Luffy had been aiming at and he cocked his head as he said "Huh? That was way off!"

"What are you doing?" Zoro asked as he sat up.

"Cannon practice!" Luffy called back. Usopp raised the cannon barrel on his turn and the cannon ball smashed right through the pillar. Luffy grinned and said "Awesome! You hit it on your first try!"

Usopp grinned and said "Whadya think?! I'm awesome when it comes to aiming! Impressed?!"

"It's settled! You're our sniper!" Luffy said with a grin, clapping a hand on Usopp's shoulder as they went to put the cannonballs back.

As they left the Mizzen Deck, I looked at Nami in confusion and said "Shouldn't that be 'Master Gunner'?"

Nami sighed and said "You really want to try to teach Luffy proper naval terminology?"

Zoro's snort at her question perfectly expressed his idea of how well THAT would stick and I shrugged as I said "Eh, fair enough."

Nami glanced up at the sky noting the position of the sun and said "Well, I guess I might as well get started on lunch." She got up off of the lawn chair she had been reading on and Zorro and I followed her into the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, there was the sound of crashing and someone shouted "Come out you damn pirates!"

Zoro glanced up from where he had been leaning against the wall and said "Hm, that voice?"

I glanced at him, but turned my gaze on Luffy who swung open the door and called out "What the…Who are you?!"

He was answered by the voice shouting "How dare you, a nameless pirate try to kill my partner?!" There was another sound of smashing wood then Luffy's angered voice shouting out "Don't wreck my ship!"

I winced when there was a final smashing sound and said "Sound's to me like Luffy is the one doing the wrecking."

Nami sighed and said "I guess we better see what's going on."

We came out to the sight of a guy wearing sunglasses, a blue jacket, and with a tattoo on his cheek laid sprawled out on the deck. Zoro cocked his head and said "Hey, Johnny, what are you doing?"

"You know this guy?" I asked with my own cocked head.

Zoro nodded and said "Yeah, he and his partner are a couple of bounty hunters I've worked with in the past. Speaking of, oi Johnny, where's Yosaku?"

"Big Bro Zoro? Why are you on a pirate ship?" The now named bounty hunter asked as he spun to sit on his knees before shaking his head and said "That's not important right now, Yosaku's in big trouble!"

Quickly standing, the bounty hunter showed us where a pair of grappling hooks were attached to our ship, a smaller boat on the other end of the lines. A glance down showed another man wearing a green coat and a red face shield laying on a sheet, his bandage wrapped middle tinged with blood. Seeing that, I leapt over the side and down to him and began checking vitals as I called up "Usopp, the first aid pack is right next to the fridge, grab it!"

"On it!" our Sniper called. A quick check showed that only Yosaku's torso was wounded so I picked Yosaku up and turned my legs into a miniature twister to bring him up onto the Going Merry's deck. I ignored Johnny's staring as I came back up and as I removed the dirty bandages, and I meant that there was more than just blood on them, I asked "So what happened?"

Usopp returned at that point and I pulled on a set of rubber gloves and began cleaning the wound as Johnny said "He got a small hit when we were bringing in a bounty, but it wasn't anything we hadn't handled before, it was done bleeding within an hour even. But a few days ago, he began losing consciousness, his teeth started falling out, and his old wound opened up and started bleeding again. I didn't know what to do, so I had him resting on that island over there, but then a cannonball came from this ship!"

I glanced up at Usopp and Luffy who had their eyes bugged and their jaws dropped before they gave short bows and said together "I am so sorry." Snorting slightly at that, I looked back down at the cleaned wound and seeing that for all of the blood on the old bandages it wasn't too bad, secured a gauze pad on it with tape then rewrapped his torso with a fresh roll of bandages from the First Aid kit as I said "Sounds like scurvy to me."

"Sounds like it to me as well." Nami said with a nod of agreement before she snapped her fingers and pointed at Luffy and Usopp and said "There are limes in the kitchen, grab twelve of them, the juicer, and a big bowl."

"Yes ma'am!" The two resident idiots said with salutes before they rushed back into the kitchen. They came back a moment later and as Nami began juicing the limes, I pulled off my gloves, turning them inwards and temporarily pocketing them until I could properly clean them and packed up the iodine bottle I had used as I said "Scurvy's a dangerous thing to catch, but pretty easily treated. Soon as we get some Vitamin C in him, he should be fine with a little more bed rest."

"Amazing! Hey, Matt, you never said that you were a doctor!" Luffy said with stars in his eyes.

"I'm not." I said with a shrug before I winced as Nami slammed her fist into our captain's head and said "Scurvy is something every sailor should know how to avoid if they're going to sail on a ship you idiot!" She then glanced back at me and said "Though you did seem to know what you were doing when you treated that wound. I'm guessing First Aid was one of the survival things you learned with that Boy Scout group you mentioned before?"

I nodded and as Nami finished juicing the limes, raised Yosaku into a sitting position. Taking the bowl from her, I said "While we can certainly 'specialize' in things we learn, every Boy Scout is taught First Aid as soon as we join, that way we can help not only ourselves, but others if we come across anyone wounded. At least until the professionals can get to us and/or them at least."

"Sounds like a good protocol to have." Nami said with approval.

I nodded again as I finished helping the still out of it Yosaku drink the juice and then laid him back down as I said "Alright, give him a few hours and he should regain consciousness on his own. Give him another couple of days and some more juice at meal times he'll be back to full health."

"Thank you very much!" Johnny said with a deep bow, tears visibly coming down from behind his sunglasses. I gave him a nod of acknowledgement and Johnny turned to Luffy and gave another bow as he said "My apologies for attacking your ship Captain. Permission for me and Yosaku to stay with you guys until he is better?"

Luffy grinned and said "You are friends with Zoro right? Stay as long as you want!"

Johnny gave a tearful smile as he gave yet another bow, this one in gratitude as he said "Thank you very much!"

Time Skip: That Night

We put Yosaku onto a bed of extra sheets and a quilt in the kitchen. Like I predicted, he woke up a few hours in and I had him drink two cups of juice along with the little bit of food he could stomach before he fell back into a much more peaceful sleep. As the rest of us sat around the kitchen table, Nami writing in the log book, she said "Let this be a lesson for the rest of us."

"Yeah, these kinds of things can happen on a long trip." Zoro said in agreement.

"Especially since we don't have much room for food on this ship." Usopp said in agreement.

"At least we won't have to worry about fresh water with the solar still I brought." I said with a grin, taking a drink of said distilled water from my duct tape cup.

"Still, we should get somebody who'd know about the dietary business." Nami said.

"Dietary eh?" Luffy asked as he bit into a bit of bread. A moment later, he stood up and said "I know! We need a sea cook, let's go look for one!"

"I get it! Then, we'd have all sorts of delicious food to eat!" Usopp said, standing up as well as he got excited like Luffy.

"EX-ACT-LY!" Luffy said, sticking out his tongue.

From where he was leaning against the stove with fist against face in a classic 'cool guy' pose, Johnny smiled and said "If you're looking for such a cook, I know where you could go." He then cocked his head and walked to stand in front of a sitting against the wall Zoro as he said "But, it's pretty close to the Grand Line, and the man that Big Bro Zoro's been hunting for, Hawk-Eye is around there too."

My eyes furrowed as I wondered if Johnny was talking about the warlord Hawk-Eye, but kept my reservations as I saw the feral grin Zoro sported. At Luffy's eager nod, Johnny pointed and said "Then our heading is clear, we must head South-South West!* To the Floating Restaurant…the Baratie!"

"Well, if we were going to find a proper cook of the seas anywhere, it would be there." I said with a grin. An image of a ship in the shape of a giant fish popped up in my mind, my world knowledge providing the basic information of the restaurant as Johnny stated where our next destination would be. Seeing everyone looking at me, I continued "After all, it was built by 'Red Leg' Zeff, who was not only the captain of his crew, but also its chef. If anyone can train a group of cooks to handle the open seas, it'll be the man who spent a year in the Grand Line and came out no worse for wear."**

"AMAZING!" Luffy and Usopp said with wide shining eyes.

"It seems we have our heading then." Nami said with a smile as she stood to make the needed corrections to our course.

"Yeah, to the Baratie!" Luffy shouted eagerly.

Time Skip: The Next Day

Even knowing what she looked like, the Baratie was impressive in person. Luffy of course was drooling in anticipation of good food, though considering he had asked if we could grill the giant fish upon sight he might have also been fantasizing about eating a giant fish. Still, as amazing as the restaurant looked, there was something else catching my attention. Hearing a second ship pulling up alongside ours, I glanced back and called out "Marine Vessel off our Starboard Stern."

"EH?!" The others asked, spinning around to look, Johnny immediately dashing into the kitchen where Yosaku was just waking up again, pushing him back in so that the two would be out of sight.

As the Marine vessel pulled up alongside us, I took in how while it was longer than us by about fifteen feet, it had the same amount of decks above water and said "Relax guys, I doubt there's anyone important on a ship that small."

"What was that?!" A pink haired man in a black lined white suit, screws on the first knuckles of his hands shouted, slamming one of said hands down on the railing. Leaning in with a sneer, he said "I'm the Marine Lieutenant, Iron Fist, Fullbody!"

"Like I said, no one important." I said with a scoff. Now, if there had been a captain on board, we would have had trouble.

Fullbody grit his teeth with a growl before he seemed to gather himself and said "Hey, who's your captain? Show yourself!"

Luffy strode up and said "I am Monkey D. Luffy." I saw Usopp take a step up as well before I yanked him back by his overalls, slapping a hand over his mouth as I did so. When Usopp glared back at me, I said "This is no time for bluster."

Usopp grumbled at that but gave a reluctant nod so I removed my hand and turned my focus back on the other conversation.

Luffy glanced back at us for a moment before he turned back around and said "Our Pirate Mark was made a few days ago!"

Fullbody scoffed and said "So I'm dealing with a bunch of amateurs, what a pain." His eyes then darted to the left where Johnny and Yosaku were hiding behind the Kitchen door watching and said "Though I do believe that I have seen those two before. You two claim to be pirate hunters don't you? Well to me it looks like you're the ones who have been captured, pathetic."

"Hey, don't mock us!" Yosaku yelled as they stepped away from the door and Johnny nodded as he reached into his jacket then threw a bunch of bounty posters to the side and said "We've captured plenty of pirates!" The posters drifted down to the ground, and sure enough several of them had Xs drawn on them, though it was noticeable that they were all in the thousands range, not a single one over ninety thousand. Nami stiffened as she saw one particular unmarked bounty, the Navigator crouching down to pick it up.

"Hmph, whatever." Fullbody said dismissively before his apparent date, a blonde in a red dress, stepped up to his side and said "Dear, stop wasting your time with these people, let's go."

"Of course my dear." Fullbody said, walking away causing the two bounty hunters to grumble at being ignored. My eyes narrowed when I saw Fullbody make a thumb's down at a pair of Marines like he was an emperor preceding over the gladiatorial arena and I said "Head's up people, it looks like they're gonna try and sink us."

"What?!" Usopp asked in alarm, before pointing as one of the cannons on the ship rolled out of its gun port and said "Matt's right, they're about to shoot at us!"

Before I could blast the Marines manning the cannon away from their post, Luffy shouted "I got it!" I watched as he wrapped his legs around the railing and stretched his arms out so that way he could grab our mast with one hand and Merry's figurehead with the other. The cannonball fired and hit him in the torso sending him flying back and he called out "Gum Gum Slingshot!" But just as he reached the extent of his stretching, Merry's figurehead splintered under his grip making him swing to stern. My eyes widened as he shot back forward releasing the cannonball which slammed into the upper level of the Baratie. As Luffy slammed into Merry's neck, I face palmed and muttered to myself "Damn it, of course we would have to do the 'damage a food establishment and thus have to serve as waiters' cliché, this wouldn't be an anime if we didn't."

Usopp apparently felt the same way as he clapped a hand on Luffy's shoulder and said "Well, Captain, it looks like you get to explain to the restaurant people why you blew a hole in their roof."

"Ah, why me?!" Luffy asked in alarm.

"Because you're the idiot who launched the cannonball at them." Zoro said uncaringly and Luffy began to whine.

Sighing, I said "I've got experience with building houses since my dad was a Contractor, I'll see if they'll accept my help in repairing the wall in negating the repair bill. Come on Luffy." With that said, I put one of the points of my glider under Luffy's shoulder then spun it, a blast of wind aiding the motion in throwing Luffy towards the ship before I opened the glider and took off after him. I quickly caught up with his thrown form and Luffy gave me a puppy eyed look as he asked "Do we have to?"

"Yes." I said flatly.

Luffy let out a word less whine before he shot his hand out to the railing near where the blown out hole was, retracting the arm and pulling himself the rest of the way in a semi controlled manner. I increased my speed and landed next to him before I walked over to the hole. Once there, we saw three chefs fretting over the head chef, identifiable by the large hat sitting on his bedside table and I said "Excuse me, who do I talk to about explaining what just happened?" (It was only polite to ask)

"That would be me!" The man on the bed said, gesturing for the others to move aside. I winced at the blood stain over his eye though that didn't prevent me from also noticing his peg leg as he stood up and said "I am Head Chef Zeff, care to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to blow a hole in my restaurant?!"

Luffy opened his mouth, but even having only spent a few days with him, I knew he was an idiot so I slapped my hand over his mouth and said "We were fired upon by the Marines by order of one Marine Lieutenant 'Iron Fist' Fullbody. My captain here has a paramecia devil fruit that turned him into rubber and tried to slingshot it back at their vessel but accidentally wound up pointed towards this one instead when he released the Cannonball. May I suggest you bill the Marines for the cost of repairs while I do the actual repairing. I do have experience in housebuilding, worked for roughly ten years with a framing crew."

Zeff stared first at me, then Luffy with narrowed eyes before he glanced at the hole we were looking into the room through. Finally, he snorted and said "Your idea has merit. However, that doesn't cover the medical side of things. You." He pointed at Luffy who gulped and said "In order to pay for my medical expenses, you shall work for me for one month without pay."

Luffy gulped, sweat pouring down his face, but a glance at me had him nodding and I removed my hand from his mouth as he said "Alright."

"Then it's settled." Zeff said as he stood up. Glancing at me, he said "We have the number of a nearby lumber yard, but it will take a short while to reach us here. However, I expect you to be working on the hole no later than seven o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Of course sir." I said with a respectful nod even as I stepped through said hole, pulling Luffy with me. Zeff nodded before a dangerous look appeared in his eyes and I was rather quickly reminded that peg leg or no, this man had taken on the Grand Line for a full year as he stomped out of the room and said "Good, then follow me, I have a Marine to talk with."

We followed him out of the room, the three chefs quickly heading elsewhere when Zeff barked a command at them, and followed him downstairs. When we reached the ground floor, Zeff's eyes narrowed on the pink haired man with metal on his hands pushing his date's chair closer to the table and pointing said "Is that the man who ordered your ship to be fired upon?"

"It is." I said and Zeff let out a grunt before he strode through the tables and clapped his hand on Fullbody's shoulder. By the way Fullbody stiffened and his own hand snapped up to begin trying to immediately pry said hand off, Zeff had a rather strong grip on it. Zeff leaned forward and said something to Fullbody that had him pale so much, even Luffy and I could see it from where we were still by the stairs. Zeff said something to his date before he literally dragged Fullbody back to the stairs, snagging a blonde man in a black suit as he did so.

When Zeff returned to the stairs, he gestured at his fellow blond and said "This is Sanji, our Sous Chef, and for the next month, you do as he says, bus boy. Carpenter, I will see you in the morning."

"Yes sir." I said, watching as Zeff literally dragged the whimpering Marine Officer up the stairs before I turned to Sanji and held out my hand and said "Hi there, name's Matt, I'll be repairing your wall tomorrow. This is Luffy, who will be working off your boss' medical bills."

Sanji accepted the hand shake and said "Like the shitty Head Chef said, my name's Sanji." Dropping my hand, he turned his gaze onto Luffy and pointed his thumb over his shoulder as he said "Come on, there's a spare apron in the kitchen we can get you while I tell you what you will be doing here." The Sous Chef put his hand on Luffy's shoulder and lead the rubber man away, Luffy letting out a slight whine as he was led away.

I shook my head at the sight before I saw the rest of the crew enter the restaurant and went to tell them about our not so planned vacation. Even if Manga logic said that something would come up in the near future to interrupt said vacation.

END

Author's Notes: Poll and Update Schedule on Profile

Like with the other two, a much better deal than Luffy staying at the Baratie for a year has been reached, and Fullbody got what's coming to him.

*I KNOW that he actually says North-North East, but considering that the Reverse Mountain is in the SOUTH part of the East Blue, that makes no damn Geographical Sense, and as Tekking101 is fond of saying, Geography is everything!

**Remember that the Orbit was an East Blue ship, NOT a Grand Line one.