A/N: Hello again!
Back again with a new chapter, and with Smoothie's words fresh squeezed into Luffy's mind, the situation becomes more and more dire as time limits close in, what will his next move be?
I do not own One Piece, It belongs to Eiichiro Oda
After the shower and the whole thing with Smoothie, Luffy and Chopper find their way to a dining hall. Dogtooth, Smoothie, and the son with the rolled up, purple hair are sitting at the table eating alongside the rest of Luffy's crew and Buggy's group. Luffy and Chopper sit down and join quietly, but Chopper is the only one who remains quiet once they do so. Luffy has lost interest temporarily in the novelty of the dancing food and falls into his usual routine of stuffing his face with whatever is within reach.
"Luffy.! Manners.!" Nami says as she kicks him under the table, bringing him to a halt. Luffy swallows what is left of what he was chewing on and lets the food do it's breakfast routine. The food finishes it's song and the plates slide up to each person's place on the table. Pancakes with honey and a side of sausages and eggs. Luffy digs in, but for a moment, he looks up and sees Dogtooth. Despite sitting at the table, no food was served to him.
"Doggy! Did the plates forget you?" Luffy asks. He looks over at Luffy, but the purple haired son speaks up in Dogtooth's stead.
"Brother Dogtooth doesn't eat with other people, he's much too refined! He has his own snack times set aside for him to eat!" He says, so Dogtooth does not have to. Dogtooth keeps his eye on Luffy, his expression seems to remain the same, but there's a softness to his eyes that a trained eye could identify as a desire to speak for oneself. Luffy does not notice, the purple haired boy gave him an answer that was good enough for him, so he went back to eating. All of a sudden, there is a rumbling as the meal continues, and it draws nearer every second. The doors to the room open slowly and reveal Big Mom has arrived for breakfast as well. She stomps into the room and takes seat the head of the group's table and awaits her food's arrival.
"Ah, Straw Hat! I have made you an appointment with the tailors on Liqueur Island tomorrow afternoon, my subordinate Bege will oversee it.! Oh, and bring your sharp-dressed crew mate there, Black Leg! I'm sure he'll be of help!" Big Mom says, gesturing to Sanji while saying the last part.
"I suppose that means I will be overseeing it as well, as the Minister of Juice I also look after Liqueur Island." Smoothie says, giving a confident look that unnerves the Straw Hats a bit.
"As for today, I will be needing a guest list from your side, Straw Hat! Invitations must go out tomorrow morning to reach everyone in good time! Please prepare a list before the end of the day!" Big Mom adds. Luffy just goes with it, this time at least, and just nods. To himself, he made his decision already to go with it for now until he could find a way to get out of this marriage without upsetting Galette or endangering himself and his friends.
"Okay, I can think of a few people I could invite, I'm not sure if they can all make it, though. But that'd be okay if they couldn't." Luffy says. If he is to "go with the flow," he will treat it like his real wedding, but he is hesitant to actually invite the people he would want to be at his real wedding. If he only had another day or two, he did not have time to make a fake guest list, so he would have to do the real thing for now. It will be alright, he is sure, or at least he hopes so. Meanwhile, the Straw Hats and the Buggy Pirates are surprised to hear Luffy being so…cooperative. They never thought in a million years he would be like this, even if it were something he wanted, it always had been and always will be a hassle, or at least, they think so. This whole trip has just been one oddity after another, and it is only day two of this little "vacation." They all find comfort in the collective thought that there must be something at play here on Luffy's side, and put it out of their minds for the time being.
With breakfast finished (after staying behind for seconds and thirds), Luffy returns to his room with Chopper and sits at the desk, grabbing a pen and the provided stationary. He picks up the pen and scribbles "Luffy's wedding guests:" on the top.
"What are doing, Luffy?" Chopper asks, standing on the tips of his hooves to try to see what Luffy was writing.
"I'm writing a guest list for the wedding.!" Luffy replies bluntly while still staring down at the paper.
"EHH?! YOU'RE REALLY PUTTING TOGETHER A LIST?!" Chopper shouts, certain Luffy was not being serious when he told Big Mom he would without any resistance. Chopper wonders what might have brought about this change, but then it hits him.
"Did Gal-y say something last night to make you change your mind about the marriage?.!" He asks. Luffy thinks for a moment, trying to decide how he can put it.
"Not exactly, I still don't wanna get married, but Gal-y said that she wanted to help me get out of this, even though it would make her sad…" Luffy starts while Chopper "oh's" in some level of understanding.
"…I don't want Gal-y to be sad though, it made me feel really weird inside seeing her so sad. I don't know why, but I told her I wanted to make her happy, too, and that I would find a way to get both of us what we want! I still haven't figured out how to do that, but until I do, I'm just gonna pretend to go along with this." Luffy finishes. Chopper gets it now, and nods to show Luffy he understands the predicament. Chopper then puts his hoof in the air triumphantly,
"Then I'll try to help you figure this out! You can put your faith in me, Luffy!" Chopper says, proud of himself.
"Thanks, Chopper! It'll be nice to have some help with it, too! I don't wanna make Gal-y have to help because I don't want her to have to think about it for now, I don't want to make her sad again." Luffy says, giving Chopper a big smile. Then, he turns back to the paper on the desk,
"Okay, now who should I invite…?" He says. A couple names come to mind right away, but he is not sure if inviting them would be safe. He is not sure if Dadan and the boys would want to come, they may not really care to see him get married. Then again, Dadan was a big softie, even though she is a bandit, he remembered how she bawled her eyes out when he and Ace left at seventeen, and she also would fold easily. Grandpa Garp could always sort of push her around and she would always do what he said, so if the Big Mom Pirates came looking for her, she would probably just do whatever they say. Even so, he did not want to force her into a bad situation if she decided to hold her ground, a hard call to make for sure. He was only on the first guest and he was already having a personal conflict! He wished he could call them up on the Transponder Snails beforehand, but if it all went to the currently nonexistent plan, they would not actually be going anywhere with anyone anyway. After some hesitation, he finally decides to write down "Curly Dadan and the Dadan Family" as the first person (or group, in this case) on the list. His next thought is of Makino and the Mayor from back home, but they were different. Dadan and the boys were already mountain bandits, but Makino did not seem the type for this whole thing. He loved Makino like a sister, or a mother, she looked after him so diligently and with such patience even he could understand must have been difficult to muster. He would not want to put her in any danger, but out of every potential candidate, she was probably the most or second most likely to want to witness him get married. After some debate, he decided to put down the name "Makino from Foosha Village," but wrote beside it ("Treat with extra care!"). As for the Mayor, he decided not to add him to the list, he cared a great deal for Luffy, but like Garp, he was unhappy with Luffy's decision to become a pirate, so he would not be happy to come to a pirate's country for the wedding of two pirates, even if it is all hypothetical. Next was Ace, who was admittedly the actual first name that came to mind, but there was a complication with that too. Luffy remembered what Buggy had said about the Emperors, how they hated each other. He knew Ace and the Pineapple Guy (Marco) were Co-captaining the Whitebeard Pirates now, and even though Whitebeard's death demoted the crew from it's status, Luffy worried inviting the now (Co-) Captain of a rival pirate crew may put a target on Ace's back. But at the same time, if Ace found out Luffy got married and he had not invited him, Ace might never forgive him, or at the very least never let it go. They would always be brothers, but Luffy figured Ace would consider it a betrayal. He finally added the name "Fire Fist Ace" to the list. He adds a few more names to the list, names of people he feels more confident about as far those who would attend, or at least that he would not have to worry about. His new friend "Trafalgar Law" and his crew the "Heart Pirates," as well as his former (temporary) crew mate and princess of Alabasta "Nefeltari Vivi" and her "entourage" (Luffy wanted to use that word more now that he knows what it means). He also put down Jimbei, the fishman he had befriended while in Marineford when he turned against the Marines and other Warlords to help out Whitebeard and Ace, and Silvers Rayleigh, former first mate of the Pirate King's crew and his Haki mentor for two years. Aside from the rest of his crew and his comrades still at HQ back on Karaibari Island, he was just about sure that would do it for his list. He could not invite Garp to a pirate wedding obviously, and he did not want to invite Dragon because he was convinced he would meet his Dad at some point naturally, and would rather do so that way. He thought about some of the people he met recently in Dressrosa, but Rebecca, Kyros, and Viola were likely too busy rebuilding their country to be distracted, and the group of allies he made were great, but he admittedly did not know them all that well (yet). He thought about Coby for a moment, but realized it would be the same issue with inviting Garp, and scrapped the idea immediately. He would have liked to have Sabo there, and he sadly touched the crossed out "S" on his chest tattoo, but he knew Sabo was surely watching over him, so it was like he was already invited in a way. Satisfied, Luffy let Chopper look over the list, at his request, before he would bring it to Big Mom.
"I don't recognize some of these names, but you must have a lot of friends, Luffy!" Chopper admits as he looks it over.
"Yeah! Well, I should get this to Big Mom now. I sure hope this all goes over well…" Luffy starts as he looks over the list one last time.
"It'll be okay, we'll figure it out, we always do!" Chopper reassures him. Luffy chuckles and thanks Chopper for the support, then goes off to find Big Mom to drop off his list with her.
"It'll all be okay…" Luffy says to himself as he heads out of his room, truly convinced and confident in his decision.
A/N: Luffy, complying? Never! Is Luffy plotting something after all, or has his heart softened a bit? And what will come of this new "strategy?" Meanwhile, my schedule may changing up a bit in the coming weeks, which may allow me to upload three, maybe even four times a week as opposed to two. I'll be sure to keep you all posted as the situation develops. For now, don't forget to Follow, Favorite, and Review!