Yo~! I apologize for not updating the last two weeks! My reason for this is that I had another story that required being updated both Sundays and I was finishing up another story.
Speaking of schedules, this story will now be updated on Saturdays. For more information, please look at the second-to-last entry of my profile.
A day had passed and not a single island had come into view. Luffy had stopped pointing towards whichever direction they were headed in and shouting "To the princess!", Usopp and Sanji had been nervously checking the diagrams and adjusting the sails every hour or so, and Zoro had mostly been drinking and lifting ridiculous amounts of weight.
Finally, Usopp lazily looked towards the horizon and spotted an island a ways off. He jumped, turned around, and yelled "Land ho!"
The others came running out. Luffy saw the island and said "Hey, I'm the captain! I get to say land ho!"
"So say it," Zoro muttered.
Luffy grinned and pointed towards the island. "Land ho!"
Usopp and Sanji were already adjusting the sails. Luffy jumped up onto the figurehead and started bouncing up and down in anticipation. Zoro leaned against the railing and pretended not to be interested.
Within the next hour, they had docked at the island. On the surface, it seemed to be normal—a quiet town, peaceful villagers, and nothing strange or upsetting happening.
The Strawhats dropped the anchor, furled the sails, and got off the ship—Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji jumped off, while Usopp unrolled the ladder and climbed down.
"Maybe we should have someone stay and guard the ship," Usopp said as they stood on the dock. "I mean . . . just to be on the safe side?"
"Great, you stay then," Sanji said.
"No!" Usopp protested. "I was thinking more like you or Zoro!"
"So you want one of us to stay on the ship," Zoro said, "and you to have one less bodyguard?"
". . . You . . . make a good point," Usopp muttered.
"I'm sure it'll be fine anyway," Sanji said with a shrug. "Merry's kind of a small ship; I doubt people would think there's anything worth stealing aboard."
"Hey! Don't insult Merry!" Usopp snapped.
"He wasn't being insulting, he was stating a fact," Zoro pointed out.
Sanji grabbed the back of Luffy's shirt just as the latter was trying to run off. "And where do you think you're going?"
Luffy looked back, annoyed. "I'm gonna go find the princess."
"Not without us, you're not."
"Why?"
"For one thing," Sanji said, "I have the picture. For another, you'll get lost if you go off by yourself."
Luffy muttered something, but stayed behind with the others.
Their first stop was a seedy-looking bar. When they walked in, not many inside glanced up. Almost everyone looked rather shady and suspicious. They approached the barman, a large bald man with an eye patch over his right eye cleaning out a glass with a filthy rag. He looked at them and muttered "You want somethin', kids?"
"If you don't mind us asking," Sanji said politely, "how long have you been working here?"
The barman shrugged. "Dunno. Fifteen, twenty years . . . lost track a while ago. What's it t'you?"
Sanji displayed the picture of the young princess. "Did this girl ever pass through her? It would've been about ten years ago, and she was probably with some folks like the kind around here." He glanced about the bar.
The barman barely gave the picture a glance. "How the hell should I know?" he growled. "I don't make it a habit to remember every face that comes through, unlike the Trader a couple blocks over."
"Trader?" Sanji said interestedly. "Could you point us in the direction of this trader?"
The barman didn't answer Sanji right away. Instead, he looked closely at Luffy. "I don't remember many people, but you look familiar, lad. You famous or somethin'?"
Luffy grinned. "Yeah, I'm famous! I just got a bou—"
Usopp slapped a hand over his mouth and hissed "Luffy, shut up! Don't go around telling people you have a bounty!"
"Luffy?" The barman said loudly. "As in Monkey D. Luffy?"
The bar grew quiet and everyone turned to stare at the man in the straw hat.
"This isn't good," Usopp whimpered.
"Monkey D. Luffy!?" Someone yelled, standing up. "You goddamn bastard! I was the record-holder for highest bounty in the East Blue before you came along! Had a good solid 21 mil! But then you come out of nowhere with a 30 mil bounty and no one knows who I am anymore!"
Luffy frowned. "What? I don't care about that. It isn't my fault anyway."
The angry man threw a dagger at him. Luffy ducked and it hit the mirror behind the barman.
"Hey now, calm down!" the barman yelled. "You start anythin', I'm gonna chuck your ass outta here myself, ya dig!?"
"You don't look like much," sniggered another man, standing and flipping a pistol around in his hand so that it pointed towards Luffy. "I may be a criminal, but I ain't well known 'round these parts. I could turn you in to the Marines and no one there'd squabble."
Luffy laughed. This seemed to infuriate the two men even more and they started approaching; the first one had produced two more daggers and the second was loading his pistol.
"Luffy, you wanna take these guys?" Zoro muttered, clearing his swords.
Luffy shook his head. "I'm good. I just wanna get Nami back, so let's go."
"You guys go on, then," Sanji said. "I'll stay and take them out."
"Make that two of us," Zoro said. "I'd like to get some exercise."
The barman had decided to hide underneath the counter.
Luffy shrugged. "Okay, go ahead. Usopp and I'll wait outside."
Usopp didn't protest, so the two headed outside. For the next minute, crashes, slashing, and bangs could be heard from inside the bar. Sanji and Zoro eventually walked out without a scratch on them.
"Done," Zoro said. "Those guys were wimps."
"Of course," Usopp said, "you were only able to defeat them because I, the great Captain Usopp, was sending you mental waves of encouragement! How did I accomplish this, you ask? It is no easy feat! To do such a thing takes years of training . . . it begins by hiking up a mountain, oh, but not just any mountain! The mountain you choose must be—"
"He said that the trader was a couple blocks away, right?" Sanji said. "Hey!" he said, stopping a passerby. "Could you tell us which way to go to see the trader?"
The person made a face as if disgusted. "What kind of people are you?" he snapped. "Wanting to see the Trader . . . honestly, that man is the lowest of the low, I swear, I mean besides the people who do business with him—"
"We asked you which way to go," Zoro growled, seizing the front of the man's shirt.
The man whimpered. "F-Fine, that way," he said, pointing down the street. "You there to buy or sell?"
"Why do you care?" Usopp asked, a notably brave action for him.
The man looked away angrily. "This used to be a peaceful town before the Trader came along, more than ten years ago. Now he attracts all kinds of seedy folk . . ." He glared at the four. "Just wondering because if you were gonna sell, I wanted to say sorry to whichever one of you it is."
Zoro let him go and the man quickly went off, glancing over his shoulder at the pirates.
"That was weird," Sanji said at last.
"Well, we know where to go," Luffy said. "So let's go!"
He ran off before anyone could stop him.