A/N: It's been ages, I know, I'm sorry :(

For Pirate Conqueror readers, I have a note for you guys at the bottom.

Chapter 33

Legendary Trades

As darkness fell, the crowd around Harry only continued to grow since only the magician provided light to illuminate his show for his viewers, conjuring blue-bell flames to dance in a circle around him. It was, perhaps, a dangerous ability to show off, but by that point, all the members of the audience were so thoroughly mesmerized by the tricks Harry was displaying, he didn't think adding one impossible trick would matter much.

It wasn't until past midnight that the people began to scatter, either to their beds or to join the scenic wares more typical of nighttime.

When the last person left, Harry flopped to the ground with a tired groan. "I am never doing that again."

Spaz yawned. "Aw Harry, but it was so cool, yes s- ," the boy yawned again, "yes sirree," he finished.

Roxy chuckled, putting the barrels away into the wooden crate and preparing to wheel everything away. The tablecloths had "flown away" as part of a later dove trick, the fate all of Harry's conjured props eventually fell to, and so the former marine finished quickly before turning to Cantora who stood with one of her baskets filled with money. At some point early on in the show, she dumped her groceries in with her carvings and, with the emptied out container, became the unofficial collector of money from those who wished to show their appreciation for the entertainment. "Thanks for all your help and information," he said, "though you needn't have stayed the whole time. I imagine you must be tired after standing so long."

Cantora didn't answer. Instead, she walked over to where Harry laid and calmly stated, "Those weren't just tricks."

Harry blinked a moment, looking up at the girl's silhouette, the light of his blue-bell flames dancing across her still face. "Well, I'm, er, flattered?"

"Do you believe in prophecy?" she asked, choosing to ignore Harry's attempt to continue the pretense.

Harry scowled. "I hate them."

Cantora smiled in return. "Meet me here again tomorrow. I would like to negotiate another trade with you."

"Er, alright," Harry agreed, more than a little confused by the other's behavior. "That private show you talked about earlier, right?"

Cantora left, and after another moment on the ground, Harry heaved himself up as well and walked joined Roxy and Spaz in walking back to the pirate ship.

"… She just made off with the money, didn't she?"

"Quite a late night," Beckman greeted Spaz and Harry, Roxy having already returned to his own ship.

"Tell me about it," Harry groaned. He patted down his robes a few times before finding his earnings from the ice cream stand. "Here," he tossed the bag of coins at the pirate. "You're the unofficial treasurer of this unorganized organization, yeah?"

Beckman caught the bag and lightly tossed it a few times to examine the weight. "You made quite a bit, it seems. Still, as pirates, we aren't exactly into the whole legally earned cash."

Harry waved his hand a few times in the air. "Then use it to restock the kitchen for me. We sure as hell could use another fridge."

"Another fridge would be awesome, yes sir-" Spaz yawned again, "-ree."

"Go to bed Spaz," Harry suggested. "We have to wake up early tomorrow to make breakfast."

Spaz nodded tiredly in agreement and left, leaving Harry with Beckman.

"So I'm going to come right out and ask," the wizard said. "I don't suppose you had any luck finding this merchant guy?"

Beckman shook his head. "Nothing just yet. It's only been a day though," he commented optimistically, lighting up a cigarette. "Sooner or later we'll catch his eye, though later probably means the captain will get into some sort of trouble and then the person in charge will have to come out just to keep his ship intact."

"Haha, wow, is Shanks really that bad?"

"You have no idea. Did you know that some marines are talking of making the title of Yonkou an official pirate label?"

Harry shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the heck's going on around that title. Spaz used it once to describe Shanks, and so has Roxy, but the other Blue marine didn't recognize it and nobody at our headquarters had even heard of the Red-Haired pirates."

"It started as a label for Whitebeard, Roger's old pirate rival. After Roger, he was seen as the next in line as Pirate King. There's been a couple of other pretty strong pirate crews popping up every once in awhile, so the one king has been the three, or four, or five emperors, depending on the current situation of the pirate activities," Beckman explained. "Some marine in the Grand Line found out that Captain once sailed with Roger and added him to a list of four. It stuck pretty quickly with a select few people, but who knows what will happen later."

"So is this notoriety a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Well," the first mate chuckled around his light, "the captain likes it. I have to say, a bit more infamy would be helpful right about now in attracting Old Man Merchant's attention."

Harry leaned back against the railing and broke into a yawn himself. "Is this merchant really someone so great? Earlier it seemed Shanks chose to come here on a whim 'cause he was bored, not out of real interest."

"Someday," Beckman predicted with a grin, "you'll realize that the captain taking interest in anyone famous for something as academic and peaceful as trading goods is a pretty big deal."

The two bid each other farewell and Harry dragged himself to his hammock, barely flicking up his wards before sleep overtook him.

"Old Man Merchant is a legendary person, you know? It's not just his ship that's mysterious. That kind of thing you see enough of in the Grand Line. The person himself, though. If you offer something valuable enough, the possible returns are both astounding and frightening…"

"Did you hear? Some pirate traded with Old Man Merchant for the names of every marine officer scheduled to patrol the northwest corner of North Blue for the coming month…"

"The rumors are at it again! I overheard at the bar that some rookie pirate actually managed to get a meeting with the Old Man. Obviously he's not telling just what it was he did to get that kind of attention. How do you feel about giving him a little motivation to spill the beans, eh? Heheh…"

"One cannon shot fired into a five ship fleet of pirates resulted in a quarter million beli haul for a single bounty hunter after he delivered all the bodies. Apparently, when the bounty payment office asked how he did it, he said to ask Old Man Merchant for the gun powder recipe. The bounty hunter quit the business after that…"

"Sir, the plan was underway as scheduled with the dozen marine ships encircling the target when a rapidly spreading mist suddenly enclosed the area. It is believed to have been the work of a devil fruit as the only ship with limited visibility was the one ship equipped with a sea-stone bottom, sir. Even then, none of the soldiers could see beyond its deck. All ships were connected through the den den mushi network, staying in a circle tight enough that the Merchant's large vessel could not possibly sail through us, sir. The mist dissipated the next morning, sir, and the target was nowhere in sight. Shooting cannon shots revealed the vessel was indeed gone and not rendered invisible. Sir, the conclusions I have come to after this failed mission is 1: there is an information leak amongst our ranks; 2: the Merchant has access to an unknown form of travel; 3: the Merchant has a communication network extensive enough to pull in favors from the Grand Line as current intelligence places the Mist devil fruit user as a Sabaody Archipelago resident; 4: the Merchant has a strange sense of humor. This morning, the Merchant applied to pay his trade taxes at the South Blue tax office on the other side of the world…"

Harry rubbed his eyes as he awoke, voices still rattling around in his head. As far as visions went, that was a bit different from the more visual flashes he was used to. Still, all those stories certainly instilled in him a sense of respect for this merchant character.

The young man rolled out of his hammock to start the day in the kitchen as usual. There was nothing quite like the smell of fresh bread in the morning.

"Morning, Kid," Shanks greeted, as Harry set out breakfast.

"Morning, old man," Harry returned before slipping back into the kitchen, smirking at the pirate's indignant protests followed by whining complaints to Spaz who was putting out silverware.

"So how was your day?" Harry inquired when all the pirates found their seats and dug into their meal.

"Not bad," Shanks replied between large mouthfuls of egg. "Yassop, of course, won the target shooting match and Beckman's team won the group fighting tournament. The swordsmanship competition was a joke. I think today I'll try just entering the whole crew into the battle royale. How about you then, Kid, Boy? You two went with Roxy to sell ice cream, yeah?"

"Oh it was awesome," Spaz exclaimed, "yes sirree, we sold all the ice cream, and, and, we met this really nice lady called Cantora and she explained how easy it would be do a performance instead so me and Roxy convinced Harry to do a magic show, and, and, wow it was so cool, yes sirree, 'cause Harry lit himself on fire and made birds come out of nowhere and, and – "

"Breathe, Spaz," Harry reminded.

"Aw man," Shanks whined, "I want to see it too!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "And like I said at the end yesterday, I am never doing that again. At least, not on such a ridiculous scale. I entertained an audience for no less than twelve hours which was nothing short of exhausting, and Cantora made off with the money, too."

"Can't you do a small show for the crew?" the pirate captain wheedled.

"Ask me some other time," the wizard sighed. "I promised Cantora something similar, anyway."

"Cantora eh? You know, you two have mentioned her a few times now. Is she pretty?"

Harry smacked the teasing man across the arm. "Oh, that's right." He dug around in his pocket a bit before finding the sea horse statue that looked like Frank. "There you go; Cantora gave it to us. You might as well have it, since we paid her back mainly by confirming the rumors you were here."

"It's Frank!" Shanks exclaimed, turning the wooden object around and around in wonder. "That's really neat."'

Seeing the man sufficiently distracted, Harry gestured towards Spaz and the two began to clean up. They had a meeting with Cantora – one she was very much interested in if she was willing to hold yesterday's earnings hostage – and needed to wake up Roxy. Apparently the man believed in "beauty sleep" and never woke up in time for breakfast. He and Kor would, instead, eat a handful of whatever on the way to wherever it was they were scheduled to be that day. Recently though, that "whatever" was often a fresh loaf of bread Harry prepared for them and today was no different.

"Rise and shine!" Spaz called out, leaping off the pirate ship onto the smaller ship Roxy and Kor occupied. Harry followed in a more normal fashion, hopping from ladder to ladder to close in on the boat before jumping on. Living on a ship has trained him to be more nimble, but the wizard didn't believe he could ever manage to walk on thin air as Spaz could.

Some grumbling later, Roxy joined Harry and Spaz on their way back to the spot Cantora requested to meet at again. Kor once more stayed behind to watch the ship. After all, Shanks had some of his crew do the same and neither of the former marines trusted the pirates not to root around their things out of boredom and habit.

When the trio arrived at the area Harry performed at yesterday, they found Cantora sitting there on a large square tablecloth with small logs stacked in a pile beside her, tools scattered around, and a fluffy pile of wood shaving growing in front of her as she worked with the object in her hands. Every once in a while, someone would stop by to watch her work before moving on; children in particular seemed particularly fascinated before worried parents pulled them away, clearly afraid for their safety so far from the borders despite the many protests of bad guys never successfully attacking the 'pretty toy carving lady.'

"Good morning, Cantora," Harry greeted, crouching down to the young woman's level for a better look at her workmanship. Harry had learned wood-working before, but his skill was far exceeded by Cantora's, who lightly shaved away at the material in her hands with a small knife, revealing round contours, that fluffed out into wings and slowly separated into individual feathers, ruffled by some passing wind.

"Good morning, Harry," she replied. "I'm glad you've come so early."

Harry shrugged. "I had no other plans, and seeing as you were willing to take yesterday's collected money as unofficial hostage, I figured whatever it was you wished to talk about must be important."

Cantora laughed. "Kye-kehkeh, yes, that was a bit of a, hmm, spur of the moment idea, but I really didn't want you skipping out on that private showing you promised me."

"Please cut to the chase," Roxy grumbled around his mouthfuls of bread. "I don't see why you want a private magic show after watching the entirety of yesterday's performance. I doubt Harry has any tricks left, anyway."

"Oh, I'm quite sure there's far more to him than he openly revealed, isn't that so, Harry?" she asked rhetorically, placing her finished work – a strange bird with a large head decorated by an even larger beak and a wavy frill up top – into her pocket, before starting to gather the tablecloth by its corners to bundle everything away in a makeshift sack. "There are several reasons why I don't believe you a just a skilled trickster and illusion, Harry."

The three men stiffened slightly at this comment and watched the female through thinned eyes.

"What gave me away?" Harry asked with forced nonchalance.

Cantora laughed. "Kye-keh! What didn't? Actually, the first thing that struck me as strange was how you didn't automatically assume that the door power I explained was a devil fruit ability, offering instead the alternative options of a bloodline power or an artifact; that your friend here also failed to make that assumption can only mean that one of you has this alternative source of power and has shared the information with the other."

She swung the sack over her shoulder and walked towards then past the men.

"Next would be the discrepancy between your performance of flawless tricks yesterday and your claim that you have never before performed. Considering your show's presentation and its many awkward pauses, I'm more inclined to believe the latter. However, you used a great number of random volunteers and needed absolutely no preparation time for any of your tricks – something that even veteran performers would be hard-pressed to accomplish. For goodness sake, your main prop had been an ice cream stand not half an hour beforehand."

Cantora paused for a moment, one hand raised to her forehead as she gazed up towards the sky.

"The tricks themselves also raised questions, of course. On an open ship you have no connections with, you were able to 'switch out' large crates and barrels, pull out large sheets of cloth from thin air, create heatless fire both red and blue, and the birds! So many birds and yet there're no signs of them ever having existed in just a few hours. I had my men searching, you know. Of all five dozen of them only one reported spotting an example of the colorful bird used for your opening, only to watch it disappear into thin air. He's very insistent he didn't blink."

"Your men?" Harry echoed weakly.

"I even had a few of them evacuate and examine the performance area when you left, for clues as to how you did managed it all. Needless to say, they found nothing," the woman continued, ignoring Harry's question. "And the few informants I could contact on such short notice have yet to return with an explanation for how you managed to change the colors of stranger's clothing."

"Evacuate? Under who's authori-, informants! You -," Harry stuttered, before clamping his mouth shut, breathing deep through his nose, and starting again. "I have to say, you're much younger than the rumors."

"Oh, no, those rumors are mostly right," Cantora admitted, "but a youthful appearance is actually a very accessible good when you know the right people."

Roxy gaped at the information overflowing from between the lines of the conversation. "You're - ?"

"Uh-uh-ah!" the woman interrupted, wagging a finger in front of her. "Don't say it. Just follow me if you're interested in what I have to offer."

The three men trailed dazedly behind her as she marched onward, creating a comical parade led by a young woman with a large sack, triggering snickers as the onlookers joked amongst themselves if the males were being lured by either treasure or feminine wiles. Harry, Spaz, and Roxy paid them no mind.

When a legend as great as Old Man Merchant offers an opportunity for a trade, the rest of the world falls by the wayside.

A/N: Three chapters back, I totally did not see this coming, did you see this coming? I did not see this coming... Meh, I'm discovering that I like gender confusion, I mean, first Spaz, and now Cantora, and neither of them planned -_-;;;

FOR READERS OF PIRATE CONQUEROR: I've lost contact with my beta :( So this story will pause for two weeks if I don't hear back at which point I will simply update with the unbeta'ed chapter. Sorry about that.

And sorry for not replying to reviews! I received so many wonderful reviews for the last chapter - yay for magic lovers! - but after a month and with this new chapter going up today anyway, I simply had not much to say.

And of course, thanks again to my beta, PyromanianBlackWings, for her work on this chapter.

12/16/11 with 623 reviews!

Thanks everyone :)