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"One Piece." – Speaking
'One Piece.' – Thinking
One Piece. – Flashbacks
One Piece. – Devil Fruits and Techniques
Deadly Drinking Pirate
Seeing the Big Picture
Previously on Deadly Drunken Pirate,
"Sanji, I want to say this only once." Luffy responded while everyone stood still and silent. It was rude to interrupt a call between those two, not to mention this feeling at the back of their heads that warned them about upsetting Luffy. He is already in unhappy mood that his 'little sister' snuck in while they were all distracted. Not to mention that Nami and Nojiko gave Aisa one killer lecture, leaving ears ringing. "Freeing Franky helps a lot but with CP9 in your way, the two of you will get killed. Robin wants to feed the hyena pack before they going hunting for her themselves. Don't try it and make sure that the carpenter is not killed off."
"…" The snail didn't speak nor change its current appearance. "Fine. But I am not happy about all this, Captain. If those jerks think they can get away with this, they will have to sit with a pain in their ass, literally." Luffy felt his eyebrow itch, but it counted. Although,
"I wish that you will curb that tongue of yours when Aisa is listening, Sanji. Just make sure not to challenge the CP9 officers and watch Robin. Only intervene when clear harm is going to come." Luffy finished his order and ended the call.
'Don't worry Robin, we will never give up on you. If a fight is what it takes, we will give them one.' Luffy thought to himself and faced straight into the storm that seems to go on forever. But this pirate had walked through hell on earth once before, this will be nothing.
"Come on captain, you will catch a cold out there in the rain!" Frank tried to call out to Luffy from the train car. "Or better yet tell us when the half of us on the floor are going to wake up!? I get that the girls were re-dressing but…!" Frank felt s hiver worse than the storm,
"Finish that sentence and you will not fall to the floor, but to the sea. I can tell that you got…excited." Luffy finally answered and his voice was heard loud and clear despite the winds and rain. "You just find a seat next to your girlfriend and talk her into letting you watch her next time." Frank didn't have anything to say to that and did just that.
Luffy knew that there was something else he wanted to complain about to Iceburg and that there was only one train car; no privacy to change into clothes more suited for battle. Not that he was the typical overprotective boyfriend, but Luffy was a sucker for a woman's need to change in private. And he didn't want anyone, I mean anyone, in the same room as his girlfriend. Whatever she was hiding was between her and Luffy, alone.
Now, he is just staring off into the distance with the rain pelting his straw hat, not that he cared. After the giant wave and that loose pair of freight cars, there were no other obstacles in their way. "I still don't know why a man in a billion such as yourself siding with monsters playing games with us." Luffy spoke again but not to the fighters inside the car he was riding on. It was a marine, formally a knight, that tried to slow down their train following the runaway train cars, his name is T-Bone.
T-Bone had curly long black hair, a skeletal face, and a long neck, and he is missing one tooth. He was pot-bellied with muscular arms and thin legs. Even after becoming a Marine, his overall appearance mirrors his former occupation: he is clad in golden, sleeveless chain mail armor with an ornately decorated collar and he wears a helmet with a long, flowing purple plume on the top. Over his cuirass, he has a tunic emblazoned with the Marine symbol. He has a rope belt tied around his waist, similar to the ones worn by some samurai. His attire is completed by standard light-blue pants and shoes. It should be noted that many elements of his outfit have one or more crosses on them: his helmet, the pendants hanging from his belt, and his sword's hilt.
"It will be pointless to explain myself to a criminal." T-Bone retorted. "After all, you are a pirate, a Shichibuki (Royal Pirate Warlord) too but still a pirate. Why are you risking your luxury and safety for that demon…ARRGH!" Luffy silenced the zombie-looking marine with a mean grip without even turning his head.
"And I don't see a point of explaining myself to a slave of the government calling himself a hero." Despite speaking deeply, the storm couldn't muffle out the anger in Luffy's voice. "I don't see why brave and selfless men are following orders from their inferiors with flashy clothes, stupid names and fancy titles. Why is that?" Despite being tied up and tar beaten out of him, T-Bone tried to not to look Luffy.
"We are all black and white you know." He started to say out of the blue and Luffy didn't respond. "The marines and I are aware that you were the one who dealt with your fellow pirates effortlessly in your home sea of the East Blue and you were the one who saved Alabastra from Crocodile with ease. There are some of us who didn't appreciate lying to the world that we did all that."
"Like Smoker." Luffy finally spoke and his tone was confident, he knew why he said that name. T-Bone just nodded, which wasn't seen in the storm. "You own me you know, I was also the one who got Smoky to forget about quitting while he was on his way to fitting my grandfather's shoes. He will be as happy as any stone-hard smoker will be to hear that I have no intent to staying a Shichibuki. I have my own reasons for taking the throne."
T-Bone didn't say anything back that time, just remembering when he heard the report about the island of Jaya and the armpit settlement of Mock Town. From the reporting marine, who witnessed the battle, noted that the pirates followed a certain dirtbag that acted like he was cheated out of his winnings. There have been plenty of pirates who dared challenge the Shichibuki, arrogantly thinking that the latter were no big deal; but T-Bone personality never heard of a pirate beating another to the punch.
"Another thing, I was actually impressed with your skill; not every master swordsman I have met could use energy attacks. Will it be too much to ask for some pointers on your style?" Luffy finally turned his head towards his captive with a smile belonging to an asylum inmate. T-Bone could only break into a cold sweat, even in the warm rainstorm.
XXXXX
A short while later,
"Sanji." Luffy was now in the train car but in a fouler mood. His chef in question was on the floor with a massive lump on his head. "I remember, clearly, that my orders were to watch over Franky and not to challenge CP9. Yet you tried anyways, and we had to fish you out of the storm. What's your excuse?" The blondie shivered badly from his spot, either from the wet clothes or that his captain is not happy in the slightest.
"They…they were supposed to be watching over Robin-san…but…" Sanji finally spoke and tried to ignore the massive lump that throbs badly. "They changed plans…Captain…" Luffy raised an eyebrow and leaned in for more. "They even had…that guy watch over…the cyborg…and the next thing I know, you were on me! They were ready for us captain!"
Luffy stopped listening when Sanji mentioned that Franky was guarded by a CP9 member instead of being their spare prisoner. "Just get Chopper to have that fixed before we arrive." The captain mused and waved his hand with the gesture of not really being interested. "Now are you going to talk or drown, Nero the Water Ratling?"
Nero is a pale, slim man, wearing a striking attire consisting of a dark-brown T-shirt, orange pants, decorated shoes and a hat adorned with a red plume. He has two necklaces around his neck, a simple one composed of green beads, and a bigger and more elaborate one, which consists of many red jewels linked together. He wears a glove on his left hand, and bracelets around the wrist. He had a unique hairstyle, with a bald top crossed by three mohawk-like strips.
"Call me what you want, pirate. I have nothing to tell you that you already know." Nero tried to put up a strong front as he, like T-Bone, is just a captive and prisoner. "I was just another pawn to slow you guys down, so my defeat changes nothing. You still can't prove that you can defeat the strongest of all CP9. Rob Lucci is undefeatable." Nero made a grin with his busted lip and bleeding gums.
"I didn't ask about your naïve and narrow-minded view of the one who kicked you out to die out there." Luffy retorted harshly yet calmly. "And if CP9 still thinks little of us then why bother thinning your ranks to protect a ship stripper and mob leader like Franky? Why is that cyborg such a precious prisoner?" Nero scowled, like he wanted to silence Luffy but not even Aisa was stirred.
"Do you seriously think that our bosses tell any of us pawns? We just do what they break and rebuild us to do, follow their orders without question." Nero answered and it got Luffy's grip on his throat. "I mean it! They tell us nothing!"
"And yet you are still lying." Luffy retorted. "Besides, I am asking what they tell you. I am asking about what you know anyways." To add some good measure, Nero saw the same demon as Eneru and Kuzan. "So talk, we are tired of your lies."
Nero was scared witless and became a sweating mess. He was loyal and not dumb, he knew that Luffy meant business and especially now. And he was probably forgotten by his former superiors anyways. "…they speak of plans to a battleship…" Nero finally talked but with a whisper that everyone heard anyways. "...they even talked about the name…Pluton."
That name rang in the ears of the Straw Hats while the Franky Family and the trio of carpenters were a bit confused. It was only a moment later that a few of them showed shock on their faces. "Pluton!? As in one of the three Ancient Weapons!? The same ones that even the Gorosei (Five Elder Stars) fear?!"
Luffy had his face darkened and finally released Nero from his grip that had gotten numb. "In the Sandy Kingdom of Alabasta, there was a giant block of unknown stone with gibberish written on it. Yet Robin understood them to document Pluton, something that she never wanted to learn so she lied to whoever asked." Luffy spoke in a grim tone. "That's why they wanted Robin and also why they lied to the world that that natives of Ohara were demons. What better way to kill off an island, make an eight-year-old girl a criminal and get their hands on the weapon for them to use? The world will never consider this to be a kidnapping but the World Government doing the justice of a crime that never happened."
Taking a breather to let all this sink and stick, Luffy wandered to an unoccupied window to stare off into the storm again. "And that is why we are getting Robin back. If I have to raise hell on earth to do it, so be it."
XXXXX
On the Sea Train, still heading to Enies Lobby on schedule,
"What!? That idiot mayor is still alive!?" Franky was moved from one prison car to another, one that happens to be Robin's. "Man! And they told me that he was killed off too! I guess that they were too embarrassed to admit it! Stupid government jerks, they are all the same." Robin said nothing while Franky had something else to say. "And now you are telling me that your boyfriend sent that blonde idiot from before to save you. You must feel like them kiddie fairy tale princesses, eh?"
"I am no princess to them, or anyone. I am just a demon, guilty for existing. That's what everyone I ever met say to me." Robin spoke again with dejection and bottled up emotions showing up again. There was just this little thing at the back of her head assuring her that Franky will not reject her like the countless others that tried to sell her out.
"That's a lot like how I thought of my ships. I tried to be a good student but all I was good at was making warships. Ice-idiot was the real apprentice while I was just a pain in everyone's ass." Franky said. "The last I ever seen of my teacher that took me in and taught me everything I know about carpentering, he gave me one final lesson. He told me that there is never any shame in building a ship even if turned into a criminal's vessel. As a carpenter, there is nothing wrong with building ships. I was determined from there to not let the world lie to me about what I love to do. Don't you let them lie to you about that bullshit with the 'crime of living'!"
Robin was silent and Franky didn't care whether his words got to her or not. The cyborg just felt something he had in common with her; the feeling that no one in the entire world will want to have them for friends or care about them. But that was before they met the same man and his crew of fellow dreamers.
'Luffy defeated Crocodile without as much as a scratch…' Robin thought to herself, 'He stopped tens of thousands of guards and rebels from killing each other. He faced a man others called a God and also easily defeated him.' Robin turned to face the storm that was parting which could have been good news; but in their case, it was a sign that there were almost to Enies Lobby, where their lives will be in the hands of the World Government.
'Luffy…' Robin thought to herself once again. 'Please come and show not just me but the whole world what you can do. What you can do for me what everyone else couldn't. Please Luffy, I am counting on you.'
End of Chapter 48.
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