A Way Forward
Usopp's gaze was hollow as he stared forward, unseeing. The whole Galley seemed thick with silence, as if the ir itself had decided to choke the usual merriment that could be found there. It was the silence of the disbelieving, the silence of the furious, the silence of those that floundered to come to terms with the impending death of a loved one.
It was the quiet of empty graveyards, and of loneliness. Each member of the crew had retreated behind their own walls of grief for a person that hadn't yet passed, but that they could do nothing to save. They had enough gold meticulously stored away thanks to Usopp's power that they could sink the local economy, and it didn't matter at all.
The Going Merry was dying.
For once, Luffy hadn't hesitated in asking Coby to do everything he could to save her, and this was the situation it brought forth: everyone was in the galley, with silence as a cloack to hide their true thoughts while the blue-haired cyborg finished his report.
"Keep the ship hidden, and don't exchange the gold just yet." the pink-haired pirate ran off on his own as soon as the Straw Hats made land, returning in a matter of hours with a wide-eyed 'super' shipwright in tow. It wasn't clear if he had bribed, manipulated, blackmailed, threatened, or simply kidnapped the speedo-wearing man, the only certainty was that he was the best of the best, and that his words would dictate the next steps of the Straw Hat Pirates.
"The Merry is damaged." Coby spoke with certainty, grabbing everyone's attention away from their own unique brands of training while they waited for the log pose to finish its work on Skypeia.
Somewhat bandaged, and a bit limping, the members of the crew walked towards the beached ship, which had been hoisted upon a wooden platform on order to be for once, waxed and pampered as she deserved. The wood seemed fine, despite the wear and tear coupled with the obvious patches but Coby only had to push firmly in an exact point for a deep groan of the wood to echo from the hull: "The keel is about to give, and I don't fancy seeing the kind of damage that dropping from the sky could inflict on her."
"What are you saying, Coby?" Luffy had adopted the serious tone that his First Mate wanted to hear when facing important issues, and everyone unconsciously straightened their backs.
"The next island on the route should be Water 7, the 'Shipwright Paradise' of the Grand Line." the pink-haired pirate replied immediately, "Usopp has a great instinct when it comes to repairs, but I don't know if him eating the Going Merry in a single bite is a possibility, and without the exact know-how of a proper shipwright, we can't be sure that she'd be fine or worse off."
Not far, the sniper clenched his fists closed, and his metal-like teeth ground one against the other. He had been told that piece of news already, as he was at Coby's side while he inspected everything he could of the East Blue caravel. That he didn't voice a protest was significant enough that the situation was worse than the calm demeanor of Coby suggested.
"Then we sail directly there!" Luffy was quick to decide, his expression already relaxing, only to be stopped by Usopp himself.
"We cannot guarantee that the ship will make it."
Rage and confusion had reigned for a while, until Zoro managed to make clear that while people grew stronger after a beating, objects only accumulated wear and tear.
"But Usopp is a genius, and he has another solution."
The sniper eyes with distaste the octopus-balloon that was now resting in an improvised fishtank, the memory of its taste and the experimental merging making him shudder despite the seriousness of the situation. While most of the crew had gone off on an adventure that apparently saw them fight against angel priests of a God that they didn't know was dead, discover a city of gold, and build a lasting peace between Shandians and normal-angels, Usopp had worked with Coby and a Brain-Pointed Chopper to find a solution to their problem.
There weren't enough birds on the island for him to chew and combine into something capable of lifting a caravel of several tons, the standard octopus-based descent could bring them anywhere in the Grand Line... which left the exploration of the dials that were so fundamental for the life in the sky.
"These are the books and notes I had to study to become a dial-engineer." Conis' father had been eager to help those responsible for killing God, and Coby had been insane as usual in spotting a new, potentially-world-changing, possibility.
The pink haired pirate placed all those notes in front of Usopp with a mad gleam in his eyes: "Eat these, but use the knowledge inside instead than the materials."
"What?" Usopp had spent months exploring his power alongside an interested Coby, which always tilted between excited and awed at the endless stream of possibilities offered by the Munch Munch Fruit, "How I'm supposed to do that?"
"I only know that necessity is the mother of inventive." the pink-haired pirate could hardly help the sniper in figuring out what he could truly do besides pointing out a new angle from which he could approach the use of his Devil Fruit, but as far as ideas and potential uses went, there was no denying that Coby's belief that everything was possible placed him head and shoulders ahead of the inventive Usopp. Oh, when it was time to concretely realize a solution, it was the sniper to obtain results, but to be fair, his Devil Fruit was tailored for exactly that task. "The alternative is pumping Chopper full of Rumble Balls and have him learn as much as he can with a brief apprenticeship of sorts with Conis' father."
"You didn't even bother remembering his name, did you?"
"Eh, he's a tertiary character at best."
Still, Usopp had persisted, munching on one single sheet of paper, pushing aside the immediate reaction of his power that pushed him towards either actually eating it, in order to sate the unique flavour of hunger that the Devil Fruit generated with its power of devour everything, or towards the merging of the useless materials in his mouth. Paper, ink, a bit of dust... there was more on that page: by definition, the simple addition of one word after the other exceeded the mere mathematical sum of the parts, there was meaning, there was... knowledge.
For hours, he persisted: munching on a single piece of paper, torturing himself with the desperate instinct he would not heed to either swallow or spit what he had in his mouth, looking, with his tongue, with his teeth, with closed eyes and alone in a room so that he wouldn't be distracted... until at some point, it clicked.
As if it had always been there, another road appeared besides the option of merging with or actually eating the written page in his mouth. To be more exact, it was as if there was a secondary path splitting off right at the beginning of the road of 'merging'. Just like teeth worked down to a swallowable shape the food one brought to the mouth, the metal-like teeth of the Devil Fruit-powered Usopp were able to split the contents of what he ate, and he did so. Knowing that there was more to what he put in his mouth than mere paper and ink, his tongue tasted the different parts, recognizing something that he couldn't name by instinct, but that logic dictated could only be what he had been looking for.
The taste of paper and ink was markedly different from the other one, which sat just on that side of the 'sixth sense' for Usopp to properly describe. Still, it was a simple matter to spit out the paper with the ink still on it, and hold back the other part, the one that no mundane sense could recognize, but that logic readily labeled: Knowledge.
With a single thing in his mouth, despite its ethereal nature, it was the simplest thing in the world to return to the 'merging' route that his power instinctively made avaliable. And as he metaphorically swallowed, Usopp allowed himself a grin: he now knew the contents of the first page of the first book that had been suggested to him. Coby had been right once more, if a Devil Fruit could imagine a way to use his power, eventually, he could achieve it.
Now that he had a feeling for what he was meant to be doing, he popped into his mouth the whole book, focusing once more on separating all the parts: it took almost a minute, but he succeeded, and spat the book while retaining its knowledge. He now knew the basics upon which dial-engineering was founded. The keen eyes of the Straw Hats Sniper fell upon the rest of the tomes, notes, and rolled-up projects, a challenging grin akin to Coby's one blossoming on his features: "Bring it on!"
Growing faster and faster with his newly discovered skill, Usopp had taken a single afternoon to learn what would take to a dedicated student several years. Of course, his knowledge would fade in 24 hours, but Coby was hardly the only one clever enough to come up with loopholes to exploit the situations he found himself in. Usopp eyed the absolutely massive book that stood on one side of the table in the middle of the Galley, with a title in gleaming gold over the sturdy leather cover: 'The One Piece of Dial-engineering, by The Great Usopp'.
With all of that knowledge perfectly fresh as part of his very self, it had been child's play, if a cerebral one, to munch blank paper, drink ink, leather, and gold, in order to produce a single compendium of his knowledge. That had taken merely an hour of focused munching: with each second that trickled by, Usopp had put into words a copy of the knowledge he held, producing what was essentially the perfect compendium of all that was known on the subject. Besides an ecstatic Coby, who had been immediately awed by the sniper's new development, it had been Robin to smile wistfully at the long-nosed pirate, a deep, unnamed emotion rising in her eyes as she witnessed the unexpected use of the Chomp Chomp Fruit's power.
Better yet, with the knowledge as part of Usopp for a length of 24 hours, he had created several copies of that book, keeping only a couple, with the intention of giving one back to Kaya: it wouldn't be quite on the same level on the other Straw Hats adventures, but it was an accomplishment that was all his, and unique and great as only someone like Usopp could become.
With all of that knowledge as part of him, it had taken a handful of minutes spent munching on a carefully selected amount of dials to produce an appropriate propeller that also made use of the strange tech that had made the Ark Maxim. What Usopp hadn't liked was the need to eat the octopus balloon, and become the only thing keeping the Going Merry flying off of Skypeia.
Still, he had done it: for one of his Nakama, that was nothing. He turned his body into a giant hot-hair balloon, and held onto the fastenings prepped on the Going Merry with all of his might while the engine he had assembled to direct them in the sky pushed the gold-loaded caravel forward. There had been little to no need for Nami's skills as a navigator, and the travel took less than a day. Only the fact that they arrived at Water 7 under the cover of the night prevented the locals from immediately spotting the flying ship, and Usopp added to his list the need to either break the 24-hours limit of his transformations or to find a loophole.
They had fun on Skypeia, the wedge that Coby's behavior had seemed to build within the crew had been dispersed like mist under the sun, and never before had Nami contemplated the idea of 'too much gold'. Everything went as well as it could have... and it wasn't enough.
"You've got a super-ship here." Franky's tone was deadly serious despite the faintly greedy glances he cast towards the door that led to the other parts of the ship, his mind no doubt on the absurd amount of money that he could make with it, "Frankly, it's a miracle that it brought you to this point on the Grand Line... I've never heard of an East Blue caravel managing half as much in one of the other Blues."
"So she can't be made seaworthy." Coby's tone wasn't as dead as his expression suggested it should be, and everyone's eyes darted to him: he was the one member of the crew with the insane plans, the uncannily inventive ways to exploit unexpected situations, and ruthless solutions. If he hadn't given up hope...
"She can't, I'm truly sorry." and despite the greedy gaze, the blue-haired cyborg seemed genuinely sorry.
"Okay then." the pink-haired pirate accepted the news without even a hitch in his breathing, "Plan B... captain, with you permission?"
"Go ahead, Coby." Luffy grinned and hunched forward, his straw hat being tilted back as his eyes shone fiercely: Coby had a plan, which meant the Merry could be saved, which simply turned the daunting news into an obstacle to be overcome, instead of a death sentence.
"Nami, to the best of your abilities, much could you make our haul amount to?" the pink-haired pirate put a hand on one shoulder of the blue-haired cyborg that had tensed slightly.
The orange-haired navigator glanced with a frown at the cyborg, clearly questioning the wisdom of having him present for this conversation: "If I have the time to sell to detail shops the more unique pieces instead than dumping everything to a gold-exchanger? Six hundred and fifty milion beli."
Franky's jaw hit the floor while even the pink-haired First Mate seemed impressed: "Franky here is the best shipwright on this side of the Red Line, maybe the best in the world."
Everyone's eyes turned to the cyborg then, who grimaced at being on the receiving end of such focus, only for his shoulders to hunch slightly at what followed: "He's also a respectable criminal, who doesn't know us, and who'd easily rob us blind given the chance. So... Luffy, Nami, Usopp, and Mikita will stay on Water 7 to keep an eye on the building of the ship that will bring us to the One Piece."
Coby made sure to make eye-contact with Franky as he kept talking: "Adam Wood: don't be stingy with it, and you'll need to provide Usopp with as many books on shipwright-ing as you can: he can become a naval engineer in a few hours, you'll see eventually. Then, you'll work together on building the greatest ship this world will ever see. I'll leave some rough suggestions with our sniper, I dare say that his power will be handy for some parts. Do your best, and we can bring back more than double that amount of money in a matter of weeks."
"What about the Merry?" unsurprisingly, Usopp was the first to make the more obvious question before Franky could answer.
Coby had been quick to reroute the topic, but while it was obvious enough that Nami was meant to oversee the selling of the haul while Mikita provided her protection, leaving Luffy behind... it was kind of asking for trouble, and while Usopp was certainly a quick study, now more than ever, he'd hardly ever manage to reach a level where he'd be able to build a ship. More importantly, it looked like the Going Merry's situation wasn't even an issue in the First Mate's head. "You heard this one, I guarantee it: there's no one better... so the Going Merry can't keep being our ship."
"Oi, Coby, you said you had a plan." Luffy's mood was high as before: he trusted his First Mate, he said he had a solution, and everything in the middle was just him playing around, just like the captain and the sniper loved doing in the snow.
The pirate in question grinned madly as he turned towards Usopp: "Do you remember Mr. Four? And in particular, his bazooka?"
Chopper, who had been in Brain Point as he often was when the crew found itself facing a tactical problem, immediately caught on what was being said: "You mean to have the Merry eat a Devil Fruit!"
"A Zoan?" the hopeful, faint voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, and only Franky didn't give a sign of hearing it, "You mean it?"
On one side of the rather cramped galley, just where the largest porthole let in the natural light of a sun that shimmered joyfully over the waves off the shoreline, stood a small, ghostly humanoid child: it wore a sailor's yellow raincoat and a pair of somewhat oversized boots. The small girl had a button nose that could barely be made out from under the shade cast by her raised hood, which was kept raised because of a pair of curved horns that peeked through the curly, brown hair.
She had wide, dark eyes that seemed ready to swallow the world with their eagerness, and while everyone mentally freaked out, Zoro's instinct didn't warn him of any impeding danger, Luffy seemed at ease, and Coby... he was smiling. "You know the answer to that question already, don't you, Merry?"
The first to recover was Chopper, who spoke while channeling all the unbound logic and insight that his Brain Point allowed him. He had already come to the conclusion that the spirit was a benevolent one, that Coby somehow knew of it already, and that indeed, what had been proposed was possible: if only for one, simple matter. "You talk of retrieving a Devil Fruit, knowing that it's a Zoan, as if it was a simple thing."
A matching grin that was just on that side of dangerous appeared on the childish figure of the Going Merry's spirit while Coby barked out a peal of laughter: "Matter of factly, I know where our best chances of obtaining such a thing are."
This time it was another member of the crew who spoke, knowledge of the surrounding isles enough to make old fears perk up. So it was with a faint quiver to her voice that Robin spoke: "You don't mean..."
"We're going to spend everything we have on a ship meant to be our home until we reach the One Piece." Coby's reply came with a wan smile as he rolled his shoulders, as if preemptively tasting the fight: "It's just common sense that we make off like thieves from Eines Lobby, which incidentally happens to hold a lot of interesting stuff."
"Even if the Merry ate a Zoan this istant," Chopper raised another objection, "Not just any whip would be able to carry her, for all we know she'd retain the size of a caravel."
Of course, sometimes, even a genius missed the obvious, which was pointed out by Luffy: "Zoo-Fruits are like the one you ate, Chopper, can't you teach Merry how to become small after she eats one?"
"I retire my objection."
The flat of Robin's hand slammed on the wooden table, suddenly dragging everyone's attention to her genuinely distraught expression: "This is too dangerous, no matter what kind of plan you can make..!"
"If you think we wouldn't go to war against the world on a whim of the captain," the First Mate smiled calmly at the archeologist, "I don't know on which ship you've been sailing on, Robin."
"It's not about doing what we want though," Luffy corrected while crossing his arms, "Coby says this is the only way to save the Merry, so we're doing it."
"You have no idea of what they can do!" Robin rounded on the First mate immediately, seeking an option that wasn't an open challenge to the World Government: "Didn't you just stop manipulating everyone because the captain agreed that we'd all need to train to become stronger?!"
"It was about mindset more than capabilities." Coby shrugged, "And right now the point isn't being strong enough, or prepared enough: the point is that I'm not going to abandon the Merry, if you truly think one of us wouldn't rather die than abandon one of the crew, you're far less observant than I gave you credit for."
The silence that followed was interrupted by the eager giggle that once more reverberated from nowhere and everywhere at once as the spirit of the Going Merry vanished from the sunlight that had been shining on it through the porthole: "I'll be waiting then, to sail again on a sea of adventure!"
"We'll infiltrate and take what we need with some transponders snails to know when we're meant to bust out." Coby laid out the main lines of the plan while Franky watched flabbergasted as a small group of madmen planned to stick the biggest middle finger ever to the World Governement, "We'll run from there once you can reach us with the new ship, run back here, give the Devil Fruit to the Going Merry, and escape as soon as the log pose is set: it's another reason why Nami needs to remain here, if we get found on Eines Lobby, we'll have all kinds of hell on our tails."
"In case you missed it, we don't have a ship to reach this place." Sanji pointed out the first logistical problem that came to mind, only to receive an amused snort from the First Mate.
"It is lucky then, that there's a train going there, isn't it?" Coby then turned towards the captain: "Luffy, how much can I tell you about possible enemies? Because I don't want to spoil anything but..."
"Merry's life is on the line, Coby." Luffy looked at his First Mate like he was stupid, "She's more important than one island's adventure."
AN
Okay, in this fic, Coby won't be a lightning-logia: fortunately for you all, I've posted also 'Coby: Thunder King', on my profile, in which he becomes exactly that, and that particular fic will kill canon far sooner than this one. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
And I've begun actually jail-breaking Usopp's Devil Fruit: we're not on Awakening levels just yet, but I plan for a very different crew post-time-skip than the one seen in the manga. After all, Coby isn't going to let anyone remain a weakling, how could he?
I skipped the already seen fights (with the implicit variations caused by Enel's absence), and focused on prepping up the arc which will be fully dedicated to the accumulated differences that I've built up to this point. So, Eines Lobby will happen again, but this version has the benefit of having the 'go to war against the world for a nakama'-part happen for the Going Merry instead of Robin, who nevertheless fully decides to be on board with her 'friends' (as described by Saul back on Ohara) for the long haul despite the various dangers that will pop up on the road.
Opinions about Usopp's development? About Coby's plan? Let me know what you think of this chapter, and make sure to check my other stories!
