Hammie opened his eyes as his hammer swung down, nailing the floorboard into place. He was kneeling. Somewhere familiar.
"Three minutes to showtime!" a familiar voice shouted amongst the rest of the backstage, "Hammie, hurry up!" the woman scolded.
The woman's familiar heels stepped in front of him along with the hemline of her black and rose dress. Her shoe tapped the floor, and Hammie found himself unable to look up at the woman's face. "Almost done, Mom," Hammie heard himself say.
"Good, just don't forget your costume this time," before Hammie could look up his mother was already gone, "Two minutes to showtime, people!"
Hammie put away the hammer and pulled out a tree saw, immediately going to work without quite understanding how.
"Oh brother dear, have you seen my seashell bra?" Jude walked up in bright, flashy mermaid costume, "I fear I might have to resort to coconuts for the balcony scene."
"Did you check by the cactus?" Hammie's voice offered.
"No, I don't imagine I did. You have my gratitude," Jude walked off leading the two unicorns, "And please, do remember your costume tonight."
"One minute to showtime!"
Hammie frantically sped up, pounding away at the floorboards with a banana.
Suddenly, everything went quiet. The lights went dark for a moment before something bright flashed in his eyes. Hammie slowly stood up and looked into the packed crowd, all staring at him on center stage.
"Hammie!" Jude whispered off-stage, "You forgot your costume again!"
Hammie looked down at himself, only now just realizing he was completely naked. He could do nothing but stand frozen in fear as the crowd murmured with confusion.
"The hell is this?" murmured Michael from the crowd, "I can think o' plenty o' people I'd like to watch naked. He ain't one of 'em."
"Meh, I've seen better," Doc sipped from a long straw connected to a keg next to his seat.
"To be caught so disarmed is to shame oneself, especially with something like this," Takashi commented.
"So, is this supposed to be a symbol or something?" asked Wendy with one eyebrow cocked as the two shark fishmen who sat on either side of her were equally confused.
Whispers and murmurs echoed through the crowd as Hammie couldn't help but watch his humiliation in this out-of-body experience.
"Too many people," Hammie thought, "What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here, I should be somewhere else, anywhere else than in front of all these people! I might screw up more, I might trip and fall or forget my lines. I might just be laughed off the stage. Oh god, why is this happening to me? Why am I standing in front of a huge crowd of..."
"PEOPLE!" Hammie screamed as he bolted up in bed in a cold sweat.
"ZOMBIE!" Doc shouted just as loudly as he was suddenly jarred awake nearby. After seeing Hammie and regaining his calm, Doc clutched his heart, "Damnit, kid, don't do that to people! I don't want a heart attack I'm not planning for."
"W-Where am I?" Hammie snapped out of his dreamlike haze and looked around at his unfamiliar surroundings, inside an unfamiliar dusty old building with various cots strewn about, set up only recently by the looks of things.
Doc casually looked over the bandaged Hammie, "Calm down, we're in Amity Village. We had to rig up a couple houses as infirmaries to treat the wounded."
Hammie looked around at the empty cots around him, "Then where are all the patients?
"Discharged. Still bandaged up something fierce, but they can move around. You're the last one," Doc scribbled some notes on a piece of paper.
"How long have I been out?"
"A week. You always take powernaps like that?" Doc asked without looking up from his chart.
"Sometimes…" Hammie answered as he got dressed, "So what's been going on since I've been out?"
"Everyone's pitching in for the wedding," Hammie glanced at Doc in confusion, "You know, the one you helped make possible?"
"In a week? So soon?"
Doc shrugged, "Apparently the happy couple think they've gone through enough already and want to get the ceremony done as soon as possible. So everyone's pitching in."
"Y-you sure this is necessary?" the poor villager asked as he looked over the largest variety of explosives he'd ever seen, more than had ever been on the entire island at any given point in time.
Michael sat cross-legged in front of the vulgar display of homemade rockets, cannons, and bombs, grinning widely like the madman he was, "What're ye talkin' bout? 'Course it's necessary! Can't have a proper party without a fireworks show!"
"But there's enough explosives here to burn the entire island to the ground! Where did you even find that much gunpowder?" asked the villager in disbelief.
"Improvised with a few lil' home recipes so we could get more bang for our buck," Michael started tinkering with a few of the rockets, violently smashing together parts with a hammer in a way that the villager was sure was going to blow up the entire stash.
The villager started backing away from the giant powder kegs, some literal, "All the same, I think I'm going to get someone to make sure this is all safe…"
Michael growled back, "Safe? 'Course it ain't safe! Wouldn't be worth the trouble if it was safe! Get whoever you want, I have to add more fireworks!"
M-More? Thought the villager as he ran off to get whomever could to make sure the island didn't go up in flames.
"This will be a true test of my skill," Takashi surveyed the kitchen, moving certain objects around, altering the very feng shui of the room to his liking, "An entire wedding cake made only by my blades."
Several villagers gathered near the kitchen entrance, unsure of how close they could get safely, "Um… we're all cooks too. We can help."
Takashi drew one of his swords, causing the other cooks to flinch, "You'll only interfere. I don't want your blood on my dish."
"Er… Is there any way we can help?" One of the chefs managed to squeak out.
Takashi didn't respond for a moment, instead opting to draw a second sword, "I suppose you can keep that corner stacked with fresh, proper ingredients. But do not disturb my meditation while doing so. Otherwise, I will not guarantee that you will live to see the ceremony. Is that clear?"
"Y-yes, sir!" the cooks enthusiastically but quietly went about their tasks preparing the ingredients for Takashi.
"Is this really the best fabric you have on the island?" Jude eyed the many colorful scraps in front of him.
"The best we could find, yeah," Wendy answered nervously, hoping that this would be enough.
Jude picked up some of the fabrics and grimaced, "Hm? Well, I'd like to say I've worked with worse but I'm not sure I actually have."
"No good?" Wendy asked disappointed.
Jude thought for a moment before starting to better organize the various fabrics, "I might be able to make something resembling a presentable dress for you out of it. I designed many of my own costumes you know. Now, let's talk colors."
Wendy raised an eyebrow, "Um… Aren't wedding dresses supposed to be white?"
"White? Heavens no! Next thing you'll tell me you'll be wanting to wear a veil," Jude laughed at Wendy, who felt foolish and confused as Jude started matching fabrics, "Besides, it's after Labor Day. Let's see… red doesn't really match your complexion. Some blue and green perhaps, have some nice sea colors in there. Ooh, and some yellow ribbon trim…"
"Everyone's pitching in, huh?" Hammie and Doc talked as they walked through the now relatively bustling streets, men and fishmen alike working together to clean up the streets, repair buildings, and pry the boards off the windows. A few of either race were sitting at the bar laughing and relaxing over drinks, "I feel kind of guilty lying in bed all this time."
"Yes, yes, we're all very disappointed with how little you've done for the island," Doc muttered without really caring as he looked over Hammie's patient chart some more. "So since I'm your current physician, I need to ask. Do you have any medical conditions I need to worry about? Genetic factors? Diseases? Prescriptions? Allergies?"
"Not really. Well, actually…" Hammie paused, thinking.
"Yes?" Doc looked up intrigued, as if some great mystery was about to be revealed.
"Eating dairy kind of gives me gas. Does that count?" Hammie offered.
Doc blinked a couple times before tossing the lot of papers to the wind, "Let's go. Wendy and Brody wanted to talk to you once you'd woken up."
The two walked through town until they came to another building, one with a broken barber pole by the front door, but just before Hammie could enter, he was interrupted by a loud shriek. "AAAAAAGH!" Hammie rushed inside, expecting to find the scene of some sort of grisly murder. He found Brody and Kitsushi laying in barber chairs, hands tightly gripping the quickly shredding armrests as Mambo's tendrils operated a series of tools in both of their mouths at once.
"You don't have to do this, you know. This is my burden, not yours," Brody's voice protested.
It was Kitsushi's voice that responded, "Bull shark crap! If I hadn't screwed everything up, you wouldn't have to go through this twice. This is my atonement for - AAAGH!" he screamed as Mambo flinched.
"Stop talkin, ya bricks-for-brains sea slug!" Mambo scolded as he tried to manipulate the dental drill through Kitsushi talking, "I can't do dental work while ya're flappin' your mouth!"
"Yeah, it'll only hurt more if you – AAAGH!" Brody screamed equally as loud.
"YOU TOO, BRODY! For crying out loud, ya think ya'd have known betta from last time!"
Hammie watched in horror and confusion as the doctor operated on both patients' mouths, "W-what's going on here?"
Brody tried to smile and greeted, "Hammie! You're aw-AAAGH!"
"HOLD YA TONGUE!" Mambo reprimanded as Hammie flinched from the painful screams, "Sorry, Hammie, dey're in da middle of cosmetic dental work. Brody needs his teeth filed back down and Kitsushi decided to join in for some reason. They couldn't figya out who should go first so dey made me work on both of 'em at once."
"It's my atonem-AAAGH!" Kitsushi tried to explain before screaming in pain.
"Um… okay…" Hammie watched the display awkwardly as a shrill screaming noise grew closer from the distance until something shot through the window and tackled him to the ground.
"haaaAAAMMIIIIIEEEEE!" Wendy grasped her arms tightly around the still recovering Hammie, "Ohyoureall rightthankgoodnessI thoughtyouwere nevergoingtowakeup!"
"Wendy, you shouldn't be in h-AAAGH!" Brody tried to speak again.
"Next time, I'm takin' ya jaw and hangin' it unda a sign sayin' no talkin' in da operatin' room!" Mambo shouted.
Finally giving up on speaking for the time being, Brody started gesturing with his hands. "What is it Brody?" Wendy tried to make sense of the gestures. Brody gestured some more until Wendy finally understood as Brody attempted to communicate through sign language, "Oh, Charades! I can do charades. Four words. First word. Sea Cucumber? No, okay. Hands. Two hands. Praying. Bowl. Give? Give! It's give! The first word's give!" Wendy jumped up and down excitedly despite Brody' frustrations, "Okay, second word! Pointing. Hammie? Hammie, you're the second word! Isn't that great?" Brody rolled his eyes and continued. "Fourth word? But didn't you skip one? Rectangle. Square. Box. Box? Something inside the box? On top of the box? Octopus? Twine? String? Little brown packages tied up with string? Cause that just happens to be one of my favorite things! Gift? Oh, gift! The fourth word's gift!" Brody gave two thumbs up, hopefully that little challenge was over. "So it's 'Give Hammie blank Gift'! So what's the third word?" Wendy carefully concentrated on Brody's nonverbal language. "Forehead? Anger? Pain? Frustration? You know you shouldn't be hitting your head like that while someone's got a drill in your mouth."
"AAAGH!"
A few minutes later, Hammie and Wendy were walking out to the bay, Doc having left to go attend to some other duties (by which he meant pass out on booze). Wendy shrugged her shoulders with disappointment. "I can never get that third word," she whined.
Hammie chuckled weakly as he tried changing the subject, "So, you got me a gift? You didn't have to do that."
Wendy instantly transformed back into her normally cheerful self, even more so than usual it seemed as she skipped ahead, "I know it's traditionally the other way around at weddings, but you've done so much for us that we had to find some way to show our appreciation," she suddenly turned back around to Forte, a little more nervous than before, "But first, I've got to ask you a favor."
"Sure, what is it?" Hammie nodded.
"Well," Wendy traced lines in the dirt with her shoe, "We don't exactly have a priest or a judge on the island. But a ship's captain can marry people, right?"
"I think so, yeah."
"You see, we've got three captains on the island. Brody's the groom and Kitsushi's the best man, which means the only other person qualified to perform the ceremony is you," Wendy pointed at Hammie, who stood wide-eyed, "Captain Hammie, would you offishi.. offisi.. office-e-ate… would you please marry us?" she struggled, blushing.
"I'd… I'd be honored!" Hammie said excitedly, "I hate to get technical though, but don't I need a ship to be a ship's captain?"
Wendy grinned widely, "And now we get to the gift part!" Wendy ran to the shore and whistled as loud as she could, which, given her lungpower, was fairly loud to say the least. A few moments later something peaked out behind some of the larger rocks in the bay, floating forward until Hammie could see the entirety of the ship that came into view. Not the navy ship he sailed here on, nor the fishmen's old headquarters. However, Hammie could recognize bits and pieces from both ships patched together on this one, along with scraps of many different models and makes of ship. It floated nearer, manned by a skeleton crew of men and fishmen, with Charlie Sunkissed at the helm, "I know it's not much. We took every usable part we could find from all the shipwrecks in the bay. Everyone who could was patching it together all week! I hope you don't mind, I already named it. Hammie, meet the Patchwork Princess! She's all yours!"
"Wendy it's…" Hammie was rendered speechless as he saw the ship. Every nail, bolt, and plank of wood was hurriedly fastened together without any sort of skill. Any self-respecting shipwright would have cringed at the workmanship, and it was obvious no one with any knowledge of how ships were put together worked on this project. Nevertheless, it had three decks, one of which was fitted with nine cannon holes: three on each side, one on the aft and one on the stern, but with only three cannons on board to split between them. It had a full house-sized cabin on the center of the upper deck where a single mast stuck out of the center like a chimney. Hammie could even see small, fresh bloodstains in some of the wood, not the result of battle but from working in overdrive to finish building the ship as fast as possible, which made sense considering it was built from scratch in a week by complete amateurs, "It's perfect! Thank you!" Hammie praised as he smiled widely with tears in his eyes. The ship itself may have needed a lot of work and wouldn't last very long on the high seas, but it was forged in the blood and sweat of the entire island just for him.
"Wait!" Wendy squealed with delight, "You haven't seen the best part yet!" She quickly darted up to the mast and started pulling the flag down so Hammie could get a better look. At a distance, it would have looked like any other skull & crossbones, the trademark symbol of any self-respecting pirate. But now that Hammie got a closer look at it, he could see the painted and re-painted careful details, as if whoever painted this particular flag kept making mistakes and had to redo their work.
The Jolly Roger itself was in the typical style of a grinning skull and crossbones, but the skull was wearing Hammie's signature bandanna, every detail carefully crafted right down to the small locks of blonde hair escaping the edge of it. In place of two bones were instead two wooden planks painted to look as if they were nailed down to patch up the flag itself.
Hammie was reduced to tears, "Wendy, this is the greatest thing anyone's ever done for me! Thank you so much!" he bawled as the two hugged tightly.
"Wendy, are you here? It's time to fit your dress," Jude called out as he boarded the ship, "Ah, dear brother, how gracious of you to join us in the world of the waking," he calmly spoke.
Wendy was jumping excitedly up and down like a kid with too much sugary cereal, "Hammie just agreed to marry us!"
Jude raised an eyebrow, "Truly? That's surprising. Performing the ceremony with everyone on the island present, I'm rather proud of you, Hammie."
Hammie's face suddenly went white, "E-everyone?"
Wendy blinked as Hammie moved to a corner and sat in the fetal position, a cloud of despair hanging over his head, "What's the matter with Hammie?"
"Oh, nothing much, just a rather desperate crushing fear of public speaking. Poor fellow can barely address a dozen men without crumbling under pressure. I'm sure he'll be fine though," Jude smiled coolly even as Hammie rocked himself back and forth in the corner of the boat.
"A-all the p-people… watching me…"
To be continued…
Author's Notes:
Thanks for the reviews. As always, they're much appreciated. Just so you know where this story stands, there will be at least 2 chapters before this "arc" is officially over. At least I'm going to try and wrap it up in 2 chapters, we'll see how plausible that is. But we've barely scratched surface of this particular crew.
My biggest problem right now is that the next arc will include several characters from the canon. I won't say who, but let's just say if you follow the manga, if you knew who it was, you could understand why I might have to rewrite and figure some stuff out. I'm trying to keep the story so that it could hypothetically fit in with the canon, but Oda's certainly making that a challenge with his plot twists.
I thought of an official name for the crew, but it hasn't been revealed in the story yet. It will be revealed by the end of this arc, at which point I'll probably change the title of the story. Speaking of which, when I finally start the next arc, that will most likely be posted separately. Future arcs will also be much longer too. I'll probably take a break to do some artwork of the characters and post it on deviantart or something. We'll see.
Anyway, reviews are always greatly appreciated. If you have questions or spot an error, let me know. I can fix minor grammatical and spelling stuff if by chance I missed something.
Oh, and to Ysaye: I'm not revealing who Hammie's father is persay, but you'll probably figure it out by the end of the arc. Here's a hint: It's not anyone in the canon of One Piece, but you still might be able to guess his name. Have fun with that little brain teaser!