Good news, my mother is officially out of the hospital. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us.
Vivi couldn't help but stare at the wanton death around her. This was terrible, and even though she managed to convince the majority of the rebels not to attack, the members Ace had missed still took the ones who hadn't believed her into going after the capital.
At least Kohza was on her side trying to stop this mess, rather than joining in.
They managed to make it to the palace, and she was fully prepared to blow the place up to try and get everyone's attention... her kingdom meant more to her than her childhood home and they could always rebuild, when Crocodile appeared.
He was clearly pissed, as he had lost two very important assets and had suffered a massive blow to his reputation that he couldn't easily fix. The Marines were already digging in to the appearance of so much Dance Powder in the casino he previously owned...which shocked Vivi because she had thought Luffy's claim about her luck was a joke...and he was stuck having to choose between his master plan or covering up everything.
Considering he was here, and not trying to hide the truth anymore, she could make a wild guess which one took presidence. Either way the man was pissed his plans were being undermined in a way he couldn't deal with directly or expect his claim over the country to be taken well by the World Government.
Usurping the local royals wasn't exactly something that would get you well liked by the nobility or the Celestial Dragons, and people happened to like Vivi and her father.
Vivi was horror struck, but there was little she could do. And then hope appeared.
"Luffy!"
She was never more thrilled to see Monkey D. Luffy in her life. There was a sense of unstoppable resolve in her frame, and she knew down to her bones that the pirate captain wouldn't hesitate to risk her life to take Crocodile down.
Which mean Vivi had to focus on the bigger picture. There was no way Crocodile didn't have a back-up plan of some sort waiting for them.
With Luffy
It was official, her time of the month sucked. Fortunately she wasn't suffering alone... by this point Nami, Nojiko and to a lesser extent Vivi had already synchronized with her schedule. Which meant they would be extra cranky at the moment as well.
She almost pitied Baroque Works, but the majority of them were assholes that she wouldn't bother to remember the names of after this anyway.
Seeing Crocodile, a vicious grin that was far too reminiscent of Hibari at his most bloodthirsty came across her face. Nearby, Robin and the king shivered in fear, glad that her ire wasn't targeted at them.
What happened was short, brutal and very informative...if by that one meant that the two witnesses learned to never piss Luffy off as much as Crocodile managed to.
"X-BURNER!"
The blast was so big that it literally cut across the sky and caused the rain above to let loose. It also made everyone, stop, stare and wonder who the hell did that and how.
Vivi merely observed the attack and was heartily glad Luffy's only real request was that the royal family fly the Straw Hat flag after this, mostly to piss off the World Government.
If this was what the rookie captain could do when motivated to help someone they barely knew, she could at least rest assured that Luffy would move heaven and hell to protect someone she openly called an ally.
"...I take back everything I might have thought or said about your comment that Luffy is a demon when chocolate deprived," said Nojiko seriously.
"Why do you think I was thrilled to be out of the line of fire when it started?" deadpanned Ace.
"Shishishi. The Bunny Princess becomes the Bunny Queen," said Belphegor amused.
"How much you want to bet they try to make her a Warlord when the story gets out?" said Ace with a wicked grin.
No way would Luffy accept that. She was determined to become Queen of the Pirates on her own merit, not relying on the coattails of the World Government.
Besides, fighting Marines was practically a tradition of all pirates, and the Warlords never got to have that sort of fun!
"No bet. The second it gets out that she has the Ranking Prince with her and beat Crocodile singlehandedly, they're going to jump at giving her the offer just to keep her from causing them more trouble. It really doesn't help that Prince Belphegor likes her either," said Vivi flatly. "Or that after this mess she has the full backing of the royal family."
Luffy winced.
"Question...does being a Warlord mean paperwork?"
"It puts you in close proximity to gramps and you have to hear the old men bitch because of the chaos you cause," deadpanned Ace.
"Yeah...screw that. Garp is only tolerable in low doses and snail calls only," said Luffy bluntly. "Like hell am I giving him a chance to try and convince us to join the Marines by becoming a Warlord! I'd rather be a Yonko anyway."
Suddenly Luffy perked up, and an evil thought occurred to her.
"Ace...what are the requirements to being considered a Yonko?" asked Luffy sweetly.
"Hell if I know. I could ask Pops though," said Ace.
Luffy beamed at him...mostly because she heard honest affection for the man Ace had decided to follow. Willingly, at that.
Xanxus needed a proper fatherly role model in his life, and it seemed Whitebeard was more than up to the task of handling her spitfire of an older brother. She was happy for him.
"Now with that out of the way... Ace, I believe you know this particular ball of sunshine?" said Luffy grinning.
It had taken some doing to get Bon Clay into the place while his men secured the Merry and hid it from the Marines. Mostly just the logistics of coordinating everything.
"Boss!" said Bon Clay with relief. He could feel his Sun flames mingling with Ace's Wrath easily, and accepted it without a second thought. It felt good to be home again!
"How the fuck did you find my okama, little bunny?" asked Ace baffled.
"We fished him out of the ocean before hitting Alabasta, literally. Once I realized who we were dealing with it didn't take much to convince him to help us," said Luffy snickering. "Now all we're missing is your pet shark and possibly the miserly Mist and you'll have your Elements again."
She sincerely doubted Levi had followed Xanxus to this life. Considering the training most Lightnings went through because of the bullshit ideas the mafia had, he probably found death a relief.
If he did follow, then she would have to reconsider her opinion of his loyalty to her brother.
While Bon Clay, or rather Lussuria, reconnected with Xanxus, Belphegor and Fran, Luffy ended up dragged outside the room by Vivi.
She did not like the look in the Princess' eyes at the moment. Not one bit.
A few hours later...
Luffy felt beyond violated, and had been reminded repeatedly over the past four hours why she hated shopping for clothes.
Apparently Vivi had come to the decision that if she had to suffer through getting a new wardrobe...she had grown in some areas and her old clothes didn't fit 'properly' anymore... then so would Luffy. Nami and Nojiko were already kitted out and made sure to update their wardrobe regularly.
Luffy, not so much.
Much to Vivi's amusement and Luffy's discreet horror, a lot of Vivi's older clothes fit her perfectly. Considering it wouldn't really look good for the common people to wear the sort of things Vivi had in her closet, she managed to give most of the lot to Luffy.
To be fair, Luffy didn't really have that many "nice" clothing that would suit the more higher class places, and Vivi really didn't want the old clothes to go to waste. Besides, this was like doting on a little sister in a way.
Did not stop Vivi from not-so-quietly snickering at the look of undisguised horror at having to try that many clothes on that came across Luffy's face though.
Luffy shivered. At least with her gender out in the open she could enjoy a bath properly.
She completely forgot the 'scene' where Nami and the other women decide to take a joint bath, or how Nami got the boys to stop peeping.
Luffy only came out of the water when she 'felt' the boys fall off the wall. She was rather happy Ace slapped all of them, because he really didn't appreciate the idiots peeping on his baby sister like that.
Besides, if Zoro played his cards right he'd see everything and more soon enough.
Luffy was not only unsurprised to find Nico Robin on the boat, but she was highly amused at the enthusiastic hug Fuuta gave the woman.
Not only had she decrypted the Poneglyph under Alabasta just as quickly as Robin had, but she also revealed a hidden compartment not even the Cloud had known existed.
She was still going to find a way to bring Giotto, or his reincarnation Gol D. Roger, back from the dead to beat the living crap out of them though. She had to clean up his mess once, she was not going to do it again!
Ace, when he found out that their suspicions were confirmed as to who Gol D. Roger was before, had looked torn between laughing his ass off (at the fact Tsunami/Luffy couldn't escape becoming the second coming of Giotto/Roger), and pissed that he only got his wish of being bloodline in this life when it was only causing him no end of grief!
For the god's sake, the government in this place literally killed off an untold number of infants and newborns simply because they wanted to kill him off before he had a chance to even grow up! Hell, his own mother somehow managed to delay his birth just so he would actually have a chance to live in the first place!
And no, none of them could figure out how the hell she pulled that off. They still had no idea how exactly Luce had Aria if she was supposedly turned into a 'toddler' like the rest of the Arcobaleno, despite still being heavily pregnant at the time.
That way laid madness, and things they were better off not knowing.
"Ahahaha... well at least she isn't as bad as Kyouya, right?" said Takeshi hopefully.
"Oh god, please let there only be one of Kyouya-nii," shuddered Lambo.
"I'm still waiting to run into Reborn and the others," admitted Luffy. "Hell, I'm rather curious if Enma and his group are here too, considering Cozart managed to get here before Roger did."
The Poneglyph under Alabasta had been written, ironically enough, by Cozart. Officially it was a 'history' of Alabasta's early years.
In reality Luffy had spent enough time deciphering Giotto's crappy cipher to recognize when someone was using it for themselves. Someone with much better spelling and grammar placement.
Considering the content, she could only assume it was Cozart, because there had been a book that detailed how to use the Flames of the Earth hidden inside the secret compartment.
Vivi was going to have a rough couple of months while she figured out how to use her Desert flames. At least she had a manual to work with, because Luffy had absolutely no idea how to use them.
"Are we really going to let her on board?" asked Nami suspiciously.
"I accessed what was left of Crocodile's empire while you were recovering and put it all into a seperate account. Here's the key," said Robin, tossing it to Nami.
"She can stay!" cheered Nami, causing the rest to sweat drop.
"Robin's fine, so long as we don't get between her and the thing she's trying to find. It's no different than if someone tried to get between Nami and her dream of mapping the world or Zoro and his desire to beat Mihawk," said Luffy.
With that, any complaint about Robin's presence died. If Luffy said she was safe to be around, they would believe her. If not, well they were certain by this point she could handle the older woman.
"Now we just need to get out of Alabasta, and on to the next island," said Luffy cheerfully.
"Small problem with that...the Marines have the place cordoned off for the most part while we were getting things ready," said Lambo. "They were pretty pissed about the fact that the royal family is already flying our colors."
Luffy accepted the telescope with a massive grin on her face. Now that Lambo mentioned it, she could see the Straw Hat flag flying proudly on several roofs. The Marines were definitely pissed, but considering it was an order from the royals there was literally nothing the could do about it.
On the plus side, Ace had made sure she followed all the 'formality' pirates could stomach to make sure everyone knew damn well that Alabasta was now the claimed territory of the Straw Hat pirates.
She was sure Shanks was getting drunk from pride...and no small amount of booze...at the moment. Yasopp too.
"So what exactly did Bon Clay want in exchange for his help?" asked Nojiko. There had been some hushed talk between Luffy, Bon Clay and Ace, before a grin of delight came across his face along with some gesturing to the snail.
"Apparently there's someone who has a devil fruit ability of being able to change gender on a whim or something with the Revolutionaries. Sabo-nii complained about him more than once, mostly because he kept getting confused by which gender to call him by until he gave up. Bon Clay mentioned wanting to meet him, as does a good portion of his crew, so I gave him Sabo's number to help arrange a potential meeting," said Luffy. "At most they'll act as go-betweens and suppliers for the Revolutionaries or something so Sabo can keep in contact with Ace and help him out occasionally on the sly."
Sabo had been alerted Bon Clay was Lussuria, and would thus treat him as an extension of Ace. Which meant he would use the okama as a middle-man for supplies, information and other items of that nature between the two brothers. Bon Clay didn't particularly mind so long as he didn't have to join the Revolutionaries as a full member.
All Luffy knew was that the arrangement confused the hell out of Dragon, which amused her greatly.
Luffy took one look at the Marines gathering to stop them from leaving before a wicked grin came across her face.
"Oh this is going to be fun," she cackled. "Time to cause some chaos!"
"...It's official, you spent waaay too much time around Reborn," said Lambo.
"Wasn't he practically her father anyway?" said Takeshi.
Lambo shuddered.
They almost felt sorry for the Marines. Except they wanted to see how much chaos their 'sister' was planning to cause. Odds are she wouldn't cause any real deaths, but she would be giving the Marines headaches for months.
Luffy was cackling when she caught the look on Hina and Smoker's face the second they realized she was using the six techniques only taught to certain Marines...or to Cipher Pol agents.
Robin had an odd look of her own when she realized what Luffy was using to spread havoc and untold chaos.
"Where did you learn that?"
"...My full name is Monkey D. Luffy, so why is it no one ever makes the obvious connection to Gramps unless I point it out?" Luffy half-asked.
"..."
Robin's eyes went wide when she got it, and she had to stare at Luffy.
"You're Garp's granddaughter?"
"Beware the Bunny Pout," said Lambo with a snicker. "She can guilt trip people into doing damn near anything with it."
Takeshi and Fuuta snickered in agreement.
"Are you aware that Shanks..." started Robin.
"I plan to kick him in the balls at least once ever since I found out he made that series," said Luffy, cutting her off. "Or at least steal all his booze and give it all to Zoro or Whitebeard."
Zoro smirked at that one.