Introducing Head Servant Lucius!
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of the Servant Who Will Rule the Seas! Today we'll be seeing Luffy's introduction to life as a royal servant, and whether or not he's suited to the task. And as the law of obligatory advertisement goes, I'd best not forget to invite you all to check out my book, Plains Riders, on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited! And on another note, a quick announcement: for those who haven't heard I'll be holding off on my next chapter of Armory of the Forgotten Hero until after the next episode of the anime airs, just to get an idea of where it's headed. I should be able to resume normal posting soon after that. Now then, I've talked long enough and it seems we have no review questions this week, so let's dive on in!
The Castle of the Lulusia Royal Family
"Now," said Komane, "your main duties will be attending to my needs. That means doing my laundry, bringing me food and other refreshments whenever I need or ask for them, accompanying me on errands, going on whatever errands I send you on and-are you even listening to me?!"
"Huh," said Luffy as he looked up from the literal hill of food he was currently consuming, "sorry, could you repeat that last part."
"Look," said Komane after rolling her eyes, "the point is you do what I say right now. If I order you to bring me food, you bring it, and if I order you to jump out a window, you jump."
"I don't know why you'd ask me to jump out a window," said Luffy after swallowing another huge mouthful, "but I could handle that."
"Good," said Komane with the kind of nod a royal uses when they're looking down their nose at someone, "and there's something else. You'll need to wear the proper uniform."
"Uniform?" Repeated Luffy, "like one of your guard guys?"
"No," answered Komane, "you'll be wearing the standard servant's uniform. The only real difference between it and a regular uniform is yours comes with a badge to denote your rank."
"Why would I need something like that," asked the Straw Hat Pirate, "I already know my rank, I'm the captain."
"Not here you're not," barked Komane, "this is the castle that represents the heart of Lulusia Kingdom, the home of the royal family. You might be captain on that overly fancy dingy you call a ship but here, you're my servant."
"Hey, the Sunny is the best ship ever!" Luffy shot back, "Franky put his heart and soul into making it and she can run circles around anything that you've got!"
"Hah, I might be tempted to put a wager on that if it was actually here," said Komane with a grin, "but since it's not here you aren't captain of anything. Now finish eating and get to your uniform fitting!"
"And I said no," replied Luffy with a 'hmph', "I like the outfit I've got on right now-OOOOOWWW!" He was silenced by a metal bar made of sea stone hitting him in the head.
"Do as the princess orders," said the guard, Burt, "or we can always lock you up without dinner."
"Alright, I'm going, I'm going," said the Straw Hat Captain while rubbing his head, "just a few more bites of this first." The Princess and the two guards rolled their eyes at this. He'd said a few more bites earlier, and that had been an hour ago.
Some Time Later: The Princess's Quarters
'Well this hasn't been the greatest start,' she mused while applying some makeup to her face, 'but I'll just think of it like breaking in a new pair of shoes. You stomp around on them for a little while and eventually they conform like they're supposed to.' In all honesty she didn't remember how long it had taken for Burgundy to get accustomed to his position because he'd been a good servant from the start and had only gotten better with time and experience. But really how hard could it be?
Once she got him to drop the sass and start doing whatever she said without question he'd be well on his way. 'I wonder if this is what it's like to have a personal project,' she mused before receiving a knock on the door. "State your business," ordered Komane without looking away from the mirror she was using.
"It's Burt, your highness," said the guard on the other side of the door, "I'm here to report that the uniform fitting for Straw Hat Luffy, er, I mean Lucius has been completed."
"Oh finally," she said before getting up and going over to open the door. They'd quickly decided that it was best to keep his status as Straw Hat Luffy secret, to avoid panic and all that, which led to the idea of a couple of extra alterations like referring to him as Lucius. Knowing that, what greeted her upon opening the door was a welcome, if not entirely expected, sight. There stood Luffy in a form-fitting servant's suit, albeit with the sleeves a little big and the pants being just a bit long.
He'd also been fitted with a fake mustache to help sell his identity as the new servant, Lucius. What stood out most, though, was the presence of the straw hat hanging on the back of his neck. "Why in the world does he still have that hat?"
"He wouldn't give it up," explained Burt, "we beat on him for a good hour trying to take it away but he wouldn't budge from his spot on the floor. The uniform fitting was going to take long enough already, so we called it quits and just got on with it."
"Why didn't you just offer him food?" Questioned the Princess with a raised eyebrow, "that's worked for almost everything else so far."
"Hey, I'm right here ya know," said Luffy, "if you want to know why I won't give up my hat you just need to ask."
"Alright then," said Komane nonchalantly, "why is it you won't give up that old, gaudy hat?"
"Because for starters, I don't even know what 'gaudy' means," replied Luffy. The thought on everyone's mind to that was 'go figure'. They'd come to the conclusion by this point that his formal education had been somewhat lacking. "And secondly, this hat is more important to me than you could ever know. It was given to me by my idol, Shanks!"
"Shanks?" Said Komane, "who in the world is that supposed to be?"
"You mean you don't know princess," said Burt, "I think he might be referring to Shanks 'The Red-haired Pirate'."
"Yeah that's the one," said Luffy with a wide smile, "he was my inspiration when I was just a kid and he's the one who gave me this hat!"
"Wait, one of the four emperors of the New World gave you that hat!" Exclaimed Dugan.
"Well he wasn't an emperor or at least no one called him that back then," Luffy pointed out, "he was just a pirate, but still the best one ever."
"And I'm sure the next thing you'll tell us is the revolutionary leader, Dragon, is your father," laughed Komane.
"But he is," said the Straw Hat Captain, "his full name is Monkey D. Dragon, just like my name is Monkey D. Luffy."
"Huh," said all three of the other people currently present before Burt spoke.
"Uh, Princess," he said, "I know it's probably not true. But the more I hear the more I think that keeping him here as a servant might be a bad idea."
"Oh it's nothing to worry over," said Komane dismissively, "the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army is probably too busy to just drop everything and head down here. So, since my new servant is finally dressed and ready, I'll give you your first task: Do my laundry."
"Your laundry?" Said Luffy in a tone between confusion and annoyance, "I don't do the laundry on the ship. It's usually Nami or Robin doing that. Chopper's tried before but he kept shedding on everything and don't even get me started on what happened when some of the other guys did it."
"Well we're not on your ship now we're in my castle!" Komane Shot back.
"Technically this is-," Dugan started to say before the Princess quickly cut him off.
"MY CASTLE!" Exclaimed Komane, "and in my castle you follow my rules and my commands. And right now I'm commanding you to do my laundry!"
"Alright, alright, sheesh," said Luffy, not wanting to get hit on the head again by a sea stone rod, "where do I even do the laundry around here?"
"Burt can show you the way," informed Komane, "and the maids and other servants already down there can show you what to do. So," she grabbed a large white bin filled with clothes and handed it to the Straw Hat Pirate, "take this and get going already. I'll need a clean outfit to go shopping later so make sure you get all the dirt off!"
Luffy simply groaned as he followed after the guard down the stairs of the castle. "What in the world's her problem?" He asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
"Her highness is very particular, that's all," replied Burt, "just do what the other servants tell you and things should be fine." Luffy couldn't help but disagree as he pulled a little at the collar around his neck. 'Fine' was definitely not the word he'd use to describe the current situation.
A Little While Later: The Castle Hallways
'Oh how good it is to be a princess,' thought Komane as she approached the laundry room, 'dozens of servants and numerous guards at my beck and call and now I've even got an infamous criminal bowing to my will. Father will definitely have to take me more seriously after this. When he sees….wait a minute, what's that sound?' It seemed distant at first as the Princess continued towards the Laundry Room.
When she reached there she was able to determine that the unfamiliar noise was indeed coming from beyond the door. At least it was unfamiliar at first until she put her ear to the door and tried to better discern the sounds beyond. That's when she noticed the strange noise she was hearing were actually noises, or rather voices. All of whom sounded somewhat frantic.
'What in the world is going on in there?' She thought to herself before turning the knob and opening the door. It was a decision she immediately regretted as a mass of suds came spilling out along with several servants which knocked her over in a tangle of wet limbs. "AAAAAAAAAAARRGH!" Yelled the Princess as she popped out of the bubble mass, "what in the world is going on here?!"
"It was the new servant, your highness," said one of her male servants who was still on the floor, "he somehow got his hand stuck in one of the large water tubs and when he tried to pull it out, the whole thing came loose."
"But where in the world did all these suds come from!" Asked a still shocked Komane.
"When the tub came loose it slammed into a shelf with all of the soap mixes," explained one of her maids, "most of them fell in and, well, it all came flowing out of the water so fast no one was able to get out in time."
"Then where in the world is Monkey D. Luffy?!" Growled the Princess between fits of spitting out soap bubbles.
"Oh man this stuff tastes so nasty," said the aforementioned pirate as he came out of the room, soaking wet and dripping bubbles with his tongue hanging out, "what kind of soap even is this?"
"What in the world did you do?!" Exclaimed Komane, "even the greenest of green servants wouldn't have been able to accomplish this!"
"Well I wasn't wearing green so that might be part of the problem," said Luffy as he tugged on his uniform, "but no one else around here is wearing green either so I don't know what to tell you." The Princess had to suppress a scream of frustration at this. 'It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, you were planning on him being a little inept in the first place.' But there was one issue that did need to be addressed.
"Did anyone at least manage to get the majority of my clothes washed before this travesty occurred?" She asked.
"I'm afraid we'd just started on those when this incident occurred," explained the Servant from before, "so it might take a bit longer than usual to get everyone's laundry straightened out today." One could say with little exaggeration that the entire castle heard the frustrated yelling of the Princess that day.
The Middle of the Day: The Royal Gardens
"Alright," said the Princess, "now we're going to try giving you some work outside so you don't wind up making another huge mess in the castle." The four of them were currently standing in the castle gardens which were found on the side of the castle. The entire area had been filled to the brim with trees, bushes, and well-tended flowers of varying sizes, shapes, and colors, all having been brought in from multiple parts of the world. Crisscrossing paths added to the serene effect and helped make for a pleasant walk. Though pleasant wasn't the best way to describe the current mood.
"I did warn you that I've never really done laundry before," commented Luffy.
"What you'll be doing out here is relatively simple," continued the Princess while ignoring the interruption, "the gardener has been needing some extra help to weed the flower beds. Talk to him and he'll show you what you do and don't need to be pulling out of the ground."
"So I'm just grabbing and pulling stuff up," said Luffy, "yeah that sounds easy enough. And if it's good exercise that means I'll be plenty hungry for some food later on."
"You'll get food when dinner rolls around," corrected Komane, "but you'll only get the extra special portions if you do a good job."
"Extra special food portions!" Exclaimed Luffy with obvious hunger in his eyes, "why didn't ya say so?!" He turned and raced towards the nearest member of the staff working at the garden. He animatedly asked them what to do before moving on to the next servant and asking them what to do, a pattern which would continue for a good couple of minutes until he finally ran into the gardener himself.
"Guess we shouldn't be surprised that he's food motivated," said Dugan, "though the chefs are not gonna be happy to hear that we're going to keep feeding him."
"Oh it should be fine," said Komane dismissively, "he'll only get fed that titanic portion when he does a good job. Otherwise, I'll feed him just enough to keep him going."
"Will it be for every time he does a good job or just at the end of a work day?" Asked Burt.
"Hmm, good question," admitted Komane, "we should probably try different approaches and see which one gets us the desired results."
"We might want to try sooner rather than later," said Dugan, "because it looks like we're going to be getting a bit more error than trial right now." Komane and Burt weren't quite sure what the guard meant at first until they looked over and saw that Luffy, while having successfully pulled out many weeds, was now grabbing onto a root that he didn't realize was connected to a very large tree. Even despite the sea stone collar around his neck sapping his strength, the pirate boy was pulling with enough force to literally uproot the tree.
"Wait, Lucius, not that one!" Exclaimed the Gardener upon witnessing what was happening. But by then it was too late as the tree went toppling over onto a cart of flowers which had been prepped for planting.
"Man, that was a serious weed," said Luffy as he wiped some sweat from his brow, "it really didn't want to let go of that tree."
"That's because you were pulling on a tree 'root' you moron!" Exclaimed the Gardener before launching into an irate rant about how everyone should know what a tree root looks like. As for Komane and the others, they let out a sigh upon the realization that this was going to be a lot more difficult than they first thought. Though the Royal would soon find that she wasn't the only one Straw Hat Luffy was causing difficulties for.
A Couple Days Later: The Town Near Lulusia Castle
"I'm really starting to worry a bit you guys," said Nami as she walked along the streets of the Lulusian town with Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper right next to her, "this is the nearest island to where we were when that storm hit and all the currents were going in this direction when he went overboard." She took a moment to adjust her short red skirt as she walked which complimented her current attire of a white, sleeveless blouse that left her shoulders and back exposed along with black heels.
"It is weird we haven't seen him by now," agreed Usopp, "Luffy usually doesn't hide very well unless someone tells him too. Even then he's not very good at staying out of trouble." The resident marksman of the Straw Hat crew had decided to keep much of his usual outfit of large, baggy brown pants with overalls along with a duck-billed hat with goggles attached and brown shoes. His weapon was stored in a large, light blue bag he had slung over his shoulder.
"You guys worry too much," Sanji chimed in, "this is Luffy we're talking about. He might get himself into..…..a lot of trouble from time to time. But he's always been good at getting out of scrapes too." The Chef of the crew had actually made quite a departure from his usual attire as he was currently wearing yellow pants with a polka-dot shirt and a brown jacket as opposed to his usual suit outfit.
"I know," said Nami with a slight huff, "but usually most of those scrapes don't involve him going overboard. Chopper, are you sure you got his scent?"
"I've got a trail, of sorts," replied the small humanoid reindeer, "but it's at least a couple days old so I'm only picking up whiffs here and there. I can't say for sure which direction he was heading after he got to the dock." Amazingly, the Crew's doctor wasn't attracting that much attention despite wearing an orange coat with a stripe of stars across the front and what appeared to be an orange and blue football helmet on his head.
"Guess that means we're doin' this the hard way," said Nami, "we'll need to split up."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Asked Usopp with a glance in her direction, "we might cover more ground that way but what if one of us gets lost?"
"Most of us have a better sense of direction than Zoro," Nami pointed out, "we should be fine as long as we're careful. Also, we'll meet up at the docks after a while, about sunset should work."
"In that case I'll go along with you my sweet Na-GAH!" Sanji's latest bout of perviness was quickly stopped by Nami putting a hand to his face to hold him at bay.
"Actually, we'll need you to check the most dangerous area," said Nami as she pointed up towards the hills, "that's the castle of the King and Queen of Lulusia. It's not likely, but we can't rule out the possibility of Luffy having been captured by the royals here."
"Then where are the rest of us going to go?" Questioned Usopp with Chopper nodding in agreement.
"I'll keep checking around town," said Nami, "I'm the best at getting information out of people, after all. Usopp, you and Chopper check around the outskirts of town and near the forest. If Luffy was weakened by the sea he might be hiding out somewhere to recover his strength."
"What'll we do once we find him?" Asked Sanji, "do we have a signal or somethin'?"
"We can use one of these," said Usopp as he pulled out a small tube with a string on the end, "I made these flares in case something like this happened. If any of us finds Luffy and we're in a position too, we can shoot one of these off and let everyone else know the good news."
"And if that fails, I guess we make a mess like always," said Nami, "Now let's get too it."
A Short Time Later: The Castle of the Lulusian Royal Family
'Did that Princess really have her last servant doing stuff like this?' Thought Luffy as he sat a log down on a flat tree stump and split it with an ax, 'I thought this was lumberjack stuff?' Not that it made much of a difference to the Straw Hat Captain. In comparison to some of the other jobs he'd been given so far this one had been one of the few tasks he'd been repeatedly successful in, splitting firewood.
And it really had been quite an experience reaching this point. After his apparent mishap at the garden they'd decided to test him out on window cleaning. That went well at first until Luffy found a spot that wouldn't come out and then broke the window by rubbing too hard on it. He'd tried hiding it by yanking the whole window out but that just made it more noticeable. Next they'd set him up on mopping the floor which wasn't too much trouble at first until he stepped in the bucket by mistake and went careening down the stairs.
Then they put him on the outside again to clean gunk off the castle walls. It went, okay, when he was down on the ground. But the problems started when he had to go up and clean the higher parts of the walls. Long story short, he kept falling. Sure his stretching could've gotten him out of it easily if not for the sea stone collar limiting his devil fruit powers.
Thankfully, he was still rubber enough to survive the falls off of the castle. By that point, though, it had basically been decided that whatever he did next should be away from most of the rest of the staff and doing something that actually involved a bit of breaking, or splitting in this case. Funnily enough, Luffy actually had some familiarity with this sort of thing thanks to the intense training his grandfather, Garp, put him through when he was a kid. It had involved a lot of forest survival.
What he hadn't been told, though, was how long he was supposed to do this for. The Princess had said someone would come to get him eventually and that if he needed anything then he should just talk to Burt who was watching him while sitting atop a nearby stone wall. 'I still don't get it,' thought the Straw Hat Pirate, 'why in the world is that princess lady keeping me around? It's not like I've been any good at this stuff so far, and why should I be? I'm supposed to be King of the Pirates after all.'
The sound of someone shifting caught Luffy's attention as he noticed Burt was getting up and moving. He was probably heading to the bathroom, which he'd done a few times already since Luffy had started his current job. Under normal circumstances he'd just up and run the moment the Princess's Guard was out of sight but that wasn't going to work this time around. Komane might not have been the smartest person he'd ever met but she had made one smart move in all of this that kept him rooted on the island.
'I need to figure a way out of this,' Luffy thought, 'I know my friends are probably on the way but the sooner I get out of here the bet-.' He stopped his train of thought as he noticed an intense whisper was being directed at him. "Hey, Luffy, over here," said a voice that the Straw Hat Captain recognized almost instantly.
"Hey," he said, "is that you I'm hearing, Sanji?"
"Yes, now look down here, quickly!" Whispered the Chef as Luffy finally saw where he was hiding: underneath another pile of logs.
"Hey, Sanji!" Luffy nearly exclaimed before being quickly shushed by his blond-haired friend.
"Will you keep it down," he said, "that guy from before could be back any minute. I'm guessing he must be strong if they only left him to look after you."
"Who, Burt," said Luffy, "not really. They put this stupid collar on my neck that's like smoke guy's jutte. And he's got a bar made of the same stuff too. I would've knocked him out of here a long time ago if not for that."
"Not sure how you know that guy's name but at least you're okay," said Sanji, "the crew's been looking for you all over the place. Now put down that ax and let's get out of here. We got a new world to explore!"
"I'd love to Sanji, but we got a bit of a problem," said the Straw Hat Captain, "the Princess told me that there's a marine base not far from here and that they'd come running at the first sign of me escaping."
"What?!" Exclaimed the Pervy Chef, "Princess! You've met a princess?!"
"Yeah, Princess Komane," explained Luffy, "she's the one who pulled me out of the water and had this stupid collar put on me."
"Guess it's no surprise she knows who you are," said Sanji with a hand to his chin, "and those marines are going to make things complicated. We might be able to sneak you out in the middle of the night if we're careful. Do you know which side of the castle your cell's on?"
"Beats me," replied the Rubber Man, "Komane told me she was moving me to the quarters of her old head servant tonight. And I've got no idea where those are at."
"First off, I'm downright jealous you're on a first name basis with the princess already," said Sanji with a sigh, "but why in the world would she be moving you to the head servant's quarters?"
"Have you seen the outfit I'm wearing," asked Luffy as he pointed to his suit and fake mustache, "that crazy lady went and made me her new head servant! They've been throwing different jobs at me for the last few days and even though I keep messin' 'em up she still keeps me around!"
"I'm betting you didn't actually listen to the reason she's keeping you around in the first place," said Sanji, "but it doesn't matter. What does matter is we know where you are now and we can come up with a plan to get you out of here without alerting the marines."
"Try and hurry it up," said Luffy, "I'm not dying or anything but I definitely don't feel like a pirate right now."
"Don't worry," said Sanji with a thumbs up, "you can count on us. As soon as we get the lay of the land, and a look at that princess, we'll bust you right out of here. Now for the time being, just be extra nice to the princess so that she'll-crap he's coming back." The Chef quickly retreated deeper into the stack of logs as Burt returned.
"You know," said Burt, "just because I'm gone doesn't mean you can start slacking."
"Yeah yeah," said Luffy with a shrug as he got back to chopping wood. But now he did it with a bit more purpose. After all, his friends knew where he was now, so all he needed to do was wait and act like everything was fine. And who knows, maybe Sanji was right and being nice to Komane was a good idea. Now that he thought about it if he was nice enough, she might just let him go! Goes to show how deeply he actually thought about things most of the time.
Taking the good news with the bad, our hero may have a way out. Or two if he plays his cards right. But nothing is ever as simple as hoped when it comes to the plans of the Straw Hat Crew and their latest plan will be no exception. But it'll be a bit before we know what that plan actually is, so in the meantime feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. Be sure to stop in next time as Luffy attempts to be 'nice' to the Lulusian Princess. And don't forget to check out my book, Plains Riders, on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited! 'Til then.
