Imagine the shock on Hardy's face when he walked in marine base to check on Luffy, just to see the marines celebrating and thanking Luffy, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro chugging down a barrel of sake, Morgan and Helmeppo tied up and thrown in a corner and giant holes in the ceiling that went all the way to the roof.
"Luffy!" He roared. Storming over to him, Hardy grabbed Luffy by the vest and dragged him outside.
"I thought I could trust you to do a simple task; pick up Iron Mace Alvida. Then, after waiting a long time for you, I come here and find this big mess?! What the hell happened?!" He yelled.
"Oh yeah! I guess Coby forgot about Alvida, I'll go get her right now. And Morgan's gonna be arrested. Ask Coby about it!" Luffy shouted as he ran back in the building.
"That kid is out of control." Hardy muttered, shaking his head.
"Hmmm... Alvida should be on the same floor that Nami was kept on." Figured Luffy.
Finally finding the cell that Alvida was kept in, Luffy walked in, leaving the door open and started unlocking the cell. He started humming a tune, but soon heard footsteps in the hallway. Curious, he locked the cell again and walked out the door to see Nami cheerfully skipping through the hallway with a giant sack filled with who knows what, hanging over her shoulder.
"Hey! Nami!" smiled Luffy, "What are you still doing here? I thought you would be gone by now."
Happily skipping over to Luffy, she answered, "Just picking some things up."
After being a bit puzzled over that response, Luffy just shrugged it over and said, "Are you walking down? Hold on a minute, I'll go with you." And quickly ran to Alvida to grab her.
The two were quietly enjoying each other's company, Nami happy about whatever was in her sack and Luffy humming quietly again with Alvida walking in front of him, hands tied behind her back. Suddenly realizing something, Nami stopped from her tracks, causing Luffy to be confused about her sudden action.
"If you're here... then where are the other marines?" She wondered.
"Downstairs." Luffy stated, confused about why she would care.
Nami cursed under her breath, "This money is making me careless. I can't go down through the stairs now. Not with this big sack of money in plain view..."
"Sack of money? Is that what's in there? The same money the marines confiscated? Nami, you really shouldn't steal..." Luffy said.
"It's not like I have a choice!" She snapped. Realizing what she just said, she dropped her bag and covered her mouth with her hands.
"Nami?" Luffy asked, "What do you mean... you don't have a choice?"
"No, I didn't say anything." She said, furiously shaking her head.
"Nami." He said firmly, looking at her straight in the eyes, "The marines are here for a reason. If there's something that we should know, something that could go against the safety of innocent people, then you have to tell us. Besides," he said in a more cheerful, "You bought me meat before, I think of you as my friend now!"
A certain change went in Nami's eyes just then. At first you could see some pain, but then it changed to guilt and then seeing the sincere smile on Luffy's face, she decided to take a risk and let Luffy in on the secret that she's been keeping for eight years now.
She took a deep breath and then she finally let eight years worth of sorrow flow out of her, "Eight years ago, a group of fishmen pirates raided my village. They demanded a fee from each villager every month. Since I was adopted into a poor family, we couldn't pay for the fee for everyone in my family." At this point, Nami's leg became unstable from remembering her terrible past and had to sit down on the bag of belly. "The Captain of the groups of pirates, Arlong, killed my mom right in front of us to make an example of for anyone who couldn't pay the fee or went against him. For eight years, I've worked for Arlong to make maps. He promised that if I can get him 100,000,000 belly, then he would free my village."
Finishing her story, Nami couldn't make herself look up at Luffy, instead she settled for looking down and letting her tears flow freely. Her hair covering her face, she watched, blurry eyed, as her tears hit the floor, making quiet splashing noises. She couldn't possibly imagine what Luffy was thinking right now. From the short amount of time she spent with him before, she could tell that he was the type of person who didn't even think of the consequences before doing something.
"Arlong the Saw, he has the highest bounty in East Blue." Luffy said softly, recognizing the name.
So that's it, Nami thought bitterly, he's either too scared of him to do anything or he's going to try to capture him just for the bounty.
"Yosh! Don't worry Nami, I'll make sure he pays for making my friend cry!" declared Luffy.
With tears still in her face, Nami slowly looked up at him. He was beaming a big grin at her. "Did you forget?" he asked, "You're my friend!" And with that, for the first time in a long time, Nami truly felt happy.
Alvida was silently watching from the side the whole time, This kid, she thought, who is he?
"Alright Nami, let's go! ... But leave the money." Luffy added.
"I'm very sorry for the damage that my Captain caused. We will repair them immediately." Hardy said, bowing his head to the newly appointed marine who was now in charge of Shells Town.
"There's no need for that, Hardy. Raise your head and be proud of your Captain. We owe him a big favor; he saved our town after all!" He exclaimed. Cheers of agreement could be heard from every marine.
"Well, I guess he did do a good job." He admitted, scratching the back of his head, "But he's out of line. You never know what he's thinking or what he's going to do, he always acts on a whim and charges to the front when facing an enemy. It's like he doesn't even know what fearing death is like. "
"You COULD think of it as a bad thing..." the marine said, rubbing his chin and putting much thought in what he was saying, "However, doesn't that make it a good thing that he's on our side? People like him would make dangerous enemies."
Hardy shuddered at the idea, "Yes, you make a good point."
"HAARRRDDDYY!" Shouted Luffy, coming down the stairs with Nami and Alvida.
Seeing the second girl coming down with Luffy, Hardy gave a puzzled look at him, "Who's that?"
"Oh, this is Nami."
The marines frowned.
"Sir, isn't that the prisoner who we locked up?" One of them whispered.
"What is she doing with Captain Luffy?" another asked.
Hearing the whispers around him, Luffy gave a slight frown. "Nami's my friend, so don't keep her prisoner." He said sternly.
"This is what I was talking about." Hardy sighed, "Luffy, you can't just-"
"Her village is being imprisoned by Arlong the Saw." Luffy interrupted, causing Nami to wince, "Instead of wasting our time here talking, we should be heading there right now."
Taken aback by the news his Captain just said, Hardy forgot about everything and said "Of course, I'll head back to the ship to tell everyone to get ready right away." And ran out the building.
Finishing his 5th barrel of sake, Zoro finally put it down and wiped his face. Surprised that no one was partying anymore he looked around to find an unpleasantly familiar face and quickly put the barrel back to his face to block it. But this didn't go unnoticed because a certain orange haired girl stormed over to him and knocked the barrel out of his hands.
"You!" shouted Nami, "You still owe me money from last time and don't try to run away this time!"
Luffy smiled as he walked over to them, oblivious of the situation he was walking into. "So you two know each other? That's great!" He exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Yeah, great." Nami said with an evil smile on her face.
"Great." Zoro mumbled sarcastically.
"We better get going, Nami. The ship's probably ready by now. So what are you going to do, Zoro?" Luffy said, facing him.
"Zoro will be coming with us whether he wants to or not. He owes me way too much money for me to just let him go." Nami said, causing Zoro to let out a frustrated groan.
"Huh? How much does he owe you?" Luffy asked, tilting his head to the side.
"80,000,000 belly." Nami said with an innocent smile.
"... HOLY BELLY!" Shouted Luffy, "What'd you do?" He asked Zoro.
He let out another frustrated groan as he shouted, "I didn't do anything!" Which resulted in Nami giving him an evil glare. Finally, he mumbled, "I accidently snapped off a stupid branch from one of her tangerine trees."
"They're not stupid!" Nami snapped, "You wander into MY home, then you break a branch from MY trees! Those trees meant a lot to me! 80,000,000 belly seems like a fair deal to me!" She shouted, calming down, she said, "So you're going to come with us until you can pay it off, that's fine right, Luffy?"
"Sure, the more the merrier!" laughed Luffy.
"So that's that, huh?" Zoro asked sadly.
"Yep!" Nami said cheerfully, "Now let's go!"
Situation- The marine ship is sailing to Nami's home Conomi Island
"Look at them." One of the marines whispered in awe, "They act as if they've been friends for years!"
The marines stared as Luffy, Zoro and Nami had lunch inside the ship. Luffy was doing his usual thing of vacuuming all the food on the table with his mouth, while Zoro tried to take all he could before Luffy got to it and Nami was busy scolding them. They all took a drink of their sake before sharing a laugh together.
"Hey, Nami." Luffy called.
She stopped laughing and asked, "Yeah?"
"Why didn't you ever tell any marines about Arlong?" He asked. She suddenly got silent until Luffy called her name again, "Nami?"
"To tell you the truth, you're the first marine that I've ever trusted." She said quietly.
"Why's that?" Luffy asked, getting curious.
"There's something that I haven't told you yet." She hesitated, "I actually reached my goal of 100,000,000 belly a few months ago."
Zoro watched silently with his arms crossed against his chest while Luffy gave her a questioning look and asked, "Then why do you still need the money for your village?"
"Arlong bribed a marine to confiscate the money so I wouldn't stop making maps for him. I had to start all over again."
"He did... what?" Luffy's eye twitched, "What kind of sick bastard would do that?! It's bad enough to imprison your village, but then he had to make sure that you would keep working for him?! And a marine too!" Shaking from anger, Luffy slammed his hand on the table, causing it to break in half and all the dishes on it to fall on the grounding breaking.
Crossing his eyes at Luffy, Zoro calmly said, "Calm down."
Realizing what he had done, Luffy took a deep breath said, "I'm sorry. I just... really hate people like them. To me, they're the worst kind of people there is."
"I know how you feel." Zoro agreed, "But that's no way to act about it. Besides, the one feeling the worst about it is Nami."
This made Luffy pause, "You're right." Then he turned towards Nami and told her, "I'm going to make sure that Arlong and the marine he bribed gets what they deserve. I promise."
Before she could respond to him however, a marine suddenly came up towards them. "We're here, sir!" He announced.
I hope you liked this chapter everyone, it was a little more emotional than the other ones since Nami confessed about Arlong. And speaking of Nami, sorry if she seemed really out of character, but I needed to mention Arlong somehow, right?
Oh, and another thing, it might take a little longer to write this story since I'm working on another. If you're interested, it's called "When Friendships Are Tested" and I should mention that whereas this story is just for fun, the other story, took a LOT of planning. Anyways, until next time, later!