Chapter 3

So, the rumors were true, the crazy old man had built a circuit of tunnels and doors inside the whale. This would make things easier.

"Let's go, we need to find the stomach." Sanji reminded his partner of their mission.

Vivi was having difficulties in hiding her surprise from finding human infrastructures in a whale. They walked a few minutes down the dark corridors until they found a door in the wall on their left.

"Mrs. Wednesday it seems that we have arrived. The stomach is behind the door prepare your weapon we need to do this as quickly as possible. The old geezer might be crazy but he is known to be strong. We shoot…"

But he did not finish his sentence, because they both turned around at the sound of a scream coming from behind them.

"I can't stoooooop!"

A huge force came crashing into them, next minute they were free falling towards the sea of digestive juice. Sanji saw the cause of all of this was falling next to them. I'm going to kick the shit out of this guy. He thought, before hitting the liquid. He let go of the heavy rocket launcher and grabbed Vivi's arm to pull her behind him while he swam towards the surface. But before they reached the surface, he felt her tug on his sleeve.

When he looked down, he saw the girl was pointing towards the sinking idiot.

Devil fruit?

One thing he was sure of he was not going to let that dumbass die so easily after ruining one of his plans. He pushed Vivi towards the surface, and swam back down. His years of almost drowning during training with his brothers had made him a decent swimmer. Of course, being an above average swimmer was not satisfactory in his father's eyes especially when you compared him to his superhuman brothers.

He grabbed the teen's red jacket and pulled him behind him. He broke the surface next to Vivi and with a lot of effort he swam towards the closest boat. He was carrying the unconscious boy while checking every five seconds on Vivi swimming next to him. When they reached the weird goat boat, he unceremoniously threw the boy on the deck without even paying attention to his landing. He turned to Vivi and this time more carefully helped her up the ladder.

When it was finally his turn to climb up on deck, he was met by three angry crew mates. They were surrounding Vivi in the hope of intimidating her. The stupid straw hat boy had woken up and was sitting on the floor, a big grin on his face.

"Hey guys I finally found you!"

Sanji assumed that by the look of their flag, these people were the boy's crew mate and they were pirates. He walked calmly on deck and placed himself between them and the princess. In all this mess, he should not forget his real mission. He instinctively reached for his pack of cigarettes but made a grimace when he found them soaked and unusable. His bad mood worsened when one of the men who looked like he had seaweed growing out of his skull started interrogating them rudely.

"We saved your asses now tell us who you are!" Sanji's eyebrow twitched in anger at his words.

"Well Mr. Marimo technically we're the one that saved that idiot's ass after HE pushed US in the digestive liquid."

He tried to answer as calmly as possible. But he quickly went into a defensive stance when he saw the green oaf reach for his swords. The man had three! However, their tensed conversation was interrupted by the return of the old geezer. He was glaring at Mr. Wednesday and him.

"You're from that island that has been trying to kill Laboon to feed their town."

His glare deepened when Sanji did not deny it. The straw hats, especially the young boy were listening to the exchange with confused expressions.

"I already told you scoundrels; I will not let anyone hurt Laboon. I promised my friends I would protect and take care of him until their return. Laboon is my friend, I will not let you hunt him down and barbecue him."

The straw hat boy looked at the old man with an understanding look. Sanji rolled his eyes at the man's sappy words.

"Whale meat should be made into soup; it doesn't taste as good when its cooked on a barbecue."

Everyone around him including his own partner looked at him like he was insane. He just chose to ignore them. It was not his fault if these people could not appreciate good cuisine.

"Old geezer, you're taking things too personally. I don't care if this whale is your friend or your wife. My boss gave us a job and I will follow it through. I will not defy orders for a stupid promise you made years ago to a bunch of dumb pirates that aren't here right now…" But while he was taking his guns out and loading it he did not notice Luffy standing up behind him and the two fists flying towards him. The next minute everything went black around him, the last thing he heard was a feminine scream calling out his code name.

shit! My mission. The princess…