'The Disgusting Fruit Under the Rock'

The Whitebeard pirates did eventually stop laughing after Marco's sudden outburst, but not before each took a turn to poke fun at him. Whitebeard watched it all over his long white moustache, a smile on his own lips, though he didn't have anything to add to the quiet chortles and melodic hoots of his now-fully assembled crew as they ribbed the young Applenine boy for how he had erupted in a yell.

"We're right here, boy," one had chuckled. Another had nearly ruffled his hair their hand was that close—Vista, Marco seemed to remember, the man with the flowering sword—as he explained there didn't need to be any shouting.

Whitey Bay and Fossa and another, the monstrous man with the braided ponytail, hadn't laughed so much as berated him—"Don't yell at pops," they ordered, but it barely lifted over the rest of the crew.

As the laughter finally began to die down, the towering captain spoke. "We were always going to help, boy. It's why the rest of the crew aren't already boarding the Moby Dick. Some may have complained, yes," and at this, he cast a long glance at Whitey Bay, who was still scowling from Marco's outburst, "but we know there's work needs doing here on Applenine. Dolica Seme is not the kind of man I want to leave running an island, not this deep in the New World, or anywhere else for that matter." He hefted his halberd, shifting it slightly to turn into what looked like it would be a makeshift walking stick. "Will you show us where the Spore Captain has buried himself up?"

Marco was silent. The laughter, Newgate's promise. His sudden outburst. Why did I yell like that? The pirates. Whitebeards. It all seemed like it was out of some story. Though, of course, so was his fruit. He nodded, and agreed to take the pirates.

The Applenine boy set about explaining where they were going and, once the Whitebeards had collected their weapons, loaded up on rations from the ship, and any black powder they could from the slain Seme pirates, the cohort set out. Only two stayed behind: the towering man with the iron gauntlets, who Marco learned was named Kingdew, and the lumpy man with the wide-brim hat and the toothy grin, Epoida. They were assigned to watch the Moby Dick while the rest of the crew ventured inland.

With the two of them staying behind on the smiling cachalot-helmed warship, that made Newgate's company eleven.

Whitey Bay and Vista took the lead on the march, talking quietly between themselves and with hawk eyes watching the banks and rises as white sand and dunes gave way to grey stones and grassy green knolls. Specks of snow had begun dotting the countryside once the sand disappeared, and while the pair seemed not to pay it any heed, their eyes scanned the stony piled crops, knolls, and smattering of snow drifts alike. Of those Marco had already heard Newgate and Whitey Bay talk about and name, the brawler Andre, the man with the flaming sword Fossa, and the young boy with the glittering diamond armour, Jozu, were all in the party heading towards Rego Calbria.

There were four Marco had not heard, but he had seen them in battle and one, Atmos, the rotund warrior with the shining silver helm, had introduced himself and the rest as the marching was just getting started. Rakuyo, adorned with his yellow bandana and with the mace—not chomping right now—hung over his shoulder, was one. He sang a hearty tune to himself as he walked, though Marco could hear Atmos picking up the tune. Similarly, a little up the Whitebeard column, Andre was humming out the same notes. Another, the one sporting the braided ponytail as long as his blade, told Marco his name was Blenheim. He was proud enough to declare himself among the best swordsman on the Moby Dick amid his introduction, though he admitted Vista held the title of master swordsman for the Whitebeards.

Eyeing Vista at the top of the column, Marco didn't doubt it either. His broad shoulders and rolling-haired chest spoke to a power as mighty as any of the other Whitebeards twice his size, but the way he carried himself alongside Whitey Bay was just as elegant and balanced as the woman leading the column. Marco could still see the man's poise in battle, the flowers covering a flowing grace to each sweep of his sabres.

The last Whitebeard to introduce themselves didn't boast about their swordsmanship or powers, but Marco knew the woman who called herself Marehei Cricket would be just as deadly with that long jousting lance she had gored through the Seme pirates as much as Vista or Blenheim and their blades. Her white and pink plumed tunic may have looked like a lady's gown, but the tight-tied rope belt had kept the whole thing from shifting an inch in the battle on Applenine Beach. In fact, Marco thought as they walked, the only way you could tell she'd been in a battle is the smudge of her pink jade eyeliner.

And, of course, Edward Newgate himself made eleven. The captain walked at the back of the Whitebeard column, his figure casting a long shadow along the sand and then the rocks, the halberd he used a walking stick seeming to stand as one part of a whole in the looming silhouette on the ground across the back half of the pirate crew.

Marco walked in silence for a time after hearing the names and stories of the many crew members marching Rego Calbria. In his silence, he listened to the end of Rakuyo's song, hummed out in its final verses.

… all sing it with a don! A song of the waves

Doesn't matter who you are, someday you'll just be bones

Never-ending, ever-wandering, our funny travelling tale!

Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho ho ho!

Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho ho ho, Yo-ho!

Rakuyo's yo-hohohos continued for a time, carried on by Atmos and Andre further ahead in a chorus. They seemed to lift for that part, in particular, Marco noted, though they certainly knew the rest of the words too. He had certainly not heard the song before. Some kind of pirate's shanty, maybe.

It wasn't too long before Marco and the Whitebeards could spy, just peeking over the horizon, the apple of Applenine. The grand structure, built—or rather, grown—from the heart of Rego Calbria, came into sight far before the rest of the city would. The band of eleven would have to be nearly on top of the city itself before they could see the red-capped stone buildings nestled in the shadow of the enormous fruit.

It was, quite simply, gigantic. Twenty times as big as the biggest building in the Applenine capital, the fruit for which the island was named shone like a great red beacon from the north shore to the south. Though the top had faded and the stalk itself was barely visible through the pitched white snow basically always gathered at the peak, the red rose of the base of the towering formation had never lost its lustre. Even when Marco was a child, playing in the shadow of the thing in Rego Calbria's snowy streets, he had been in awe of the dim red light that a merry combination of the sun and the mega-sized apple cast over the people of the Grand Line island.

Littered around its top, middle, and even the surrounding countryside were nearly a half-dozen more apples too. These were far smaller in size and only outstripped the best-built home by four or five times its reach but they looked small as the Whitebeards drunk in the centrepiece malus in the middle.

Behind the towering Applenine apple and its family of smaller fruits lay the island's Stalk Mountains. These were great peaks, covered like the centre apple's stalk with ever-falling snow, but even they appeared dwarfed. At their feet rolled a forest, piercing bright green next to the whites of the mountains and the grey of Rego Calbria and the rich reds and oranges of the plump apples dotting the landscape.

"Makes me hungry just looking at it," Atmos said, his strong-sung shanty forgotten for a time as he gazed out at the heart of the Applenine island. "Has anyone ever taken a bite out of it before Marco?"

"Yeah, plenty have tried," Marco replied, "but —"

Whitey Bay didn't wait until he had finished speaking. "Strong as you might be, Buffalo, your teeth would bend to the will of that great fruit." This drew a chuckle from Atmos, who in reply just started his march again. The Whitebeard pirates' song rang out again soon after, a "Yo-ho ho ho!" led by Rakuyo keeping pace.

Marco moved to follow, but a question kept his feet planted firmly on the rocks at the crest of the mountain. "You've lived here all your life, Marco?"

Newgate, moving with all the gentleness of a man five times physically his lesser, had stepped up beside Marco and was watching out toward the Applenine apple and its fruit family with him. The banded halberd had again changed its job—this time it was the perfect leaning pole, held out at an angle for the captain to casually rest his arm as his eyes drunk in the beating heart of the Grand Line island rolled out at his feet.

Marco started. "All my life, yes," he replied. "I was born here, and but for one time to Dressrosa, I have been here as long as I can remember. Applenine is my home. That's why I want Seme gone, if you can help."

Whitebeard huffed, his moustache bending out with the breath. "I already said we would help Rego Calbria didn't I, boy? I don't like to be pushed, even if it is in the direction of something worth being pushed for. Tread carefully when you make requests of me. Even more so when you make demands—and especially if you yell them."

So he hadn't ignored my silly little outburst. "I'm sorry, I—" he started.

"I don't recall asking for an apology Marco. I am simply telling you what is. I do not want you apologising for wanting to save your home." He paused. The towering man's eyes were on the apple still but his mind seemed to be wandering further away, over the Stalk Mountains and onto the seas. "I would do the same." Then, as if snapped out of a deep slumber, Newgate's shoulders rumbled and he hefted his halberd up over his shoulder. "Why do you not fight back against the pirates yourself, boy?"

Marco stiffened. He knows? He can't know.

Neither Newgate nor Marco spoke. A minute passed, and then two. Marco looked up at the Whitebeard captain and found he was looking down at him. The question, again. "Why do you come to the beach of Applenine where a pirate crew was landing, intent on begging them for help when you could fight?"

"Who says I can fight them myself?"

Newgate chuckled, his soft rolling laugh seeming to make light of Marco's carefully thought-out response. "Gurarara… I can see it all on you, boy. You can't hide your strength, nor even your feelings, from Haki."

Haki. Marco had heard the word before, bandied about like a ghost story from the smattering of Navy ships that had docked in Applenine. Once, too, a wounded, beaten pirate crew had dragged itself to Applenine to lick their wounds. Marco couldn't even remember their names. What he did remember though was that they hadn't been strong enough to stand up to the might of one of the Marine Vice Admirals, or even threaten Rego Calbria when that same Vice Admiral had made a mockery of their Grand Line ambitions. That Vice Admiral had wielded the power of a Devil Fruit, yes, but the beaten, battered, bruised pirates—soon to be simply sailors again, once they sold their ship in Paradise and threw away their weapons—had been more terrified of another power. Haki, they had called it, when they spoke of it at all. The power to see attacks before they happened, to break the minds and wills of the pirates so utterly that even Applenine's oft-peaceful villagers were more than happy to give them a roof instead of turning them away.

Yes, Marco knew it. Haki: the power of the Grand Line's strongest warriors.

There was no doubt Newgate ranked among them.

"Were you going to tell us?" he asked.

It was a truth Marco had planned to keep from the pirates. It was a truth he kept from everyone, really. He'd avoided water ever since—the threat of the discovery lay splashing in the ocean now, just as much as it threatened to swallow the young boy whole, without so much as a struggle.

He had eaten a Devil Fruit he'd found hidden on the archipelago.

Marco had eaten the fruit, and turned into a Phoenix.

"I wasn't, no."

Whitebeard's gaze drifted away from the boy. "I suppose it makes the most sense to keep it from us, as much as anyone." He opened his palm, tensing the muscles in his wide hand, and just for a moment it looked to Marco as if the very air was bending, no, cracking, in the space above his grip. "It's a curse as much as a gift, I know that. People fear you, no matter the power. The ocean hates you, no matter how much love you give it in all your years. There was a time I regretted eating mine, yes, though that time is long, long past for me."

"You chose to take the power you have?"

"Yes, and I knew what I was getting myself into. A long story for another day, perhaps. Instead, I will simply offer this: I will tell you my power, and then you will tell me about yours. I have watched your aura since the arrived on the beach and I have much desired to hear what lies beneath, boy."

"I have one better for you, old man," Marco shot back. "I will tell you about my Bird-Bird Fruit if you call me by my name. I remember asking you to do that already, though it hasn't sunk in."

For the first time since the Whitebeard pirates had landed on the beach, Marco saw Newgate looked stunned. It only lasted a second, but a wave of emotions rolled under the captain's wide white moustache—surprise, and shock, and then a hint of a smile, before it all went back to the long look he had been giving Marco before his lashed-back response. If the laughter Newgate had doled out on the beach had been jovial and the chuckles he had shared on the march to the crest above Rego Calbria had been gentle, this was a full booming, sound-splitting uproar.

"Gurarara! Gurararara!"

The peal of laughter reached the Whitebeards already making their way down the other side of the outcrop and some, among them Vista and Blenheim, looked back up at their captain and the Applenine boy. Marco even caught a glimpse of Whitey Bay smiling as she heard the rolling bellow. Like frost melting away, her grin spread slowly, the icy facade she had carried all the way from the beach retreating. In its place, there was a bright beam wrapped across her pale white face. She wasn't quite laughing, not like the rest of the pirates when they heard their captain, but Marco could see her blue hair bobbing to the rhythm of a chuckle. He would always remember that was the first time he made the Ice Queen smile, even if she didn't quite realise he and his sharp snap had actually been the cause of the captain's bellowing joy rolling down the hill in a wave.

Marco watched until the captain snapped him from the daze.

"You do make me laugh, boy," Newgate said when his rumble had ended, though he did chuckle again when his 'boy' had caught a scowl from Marco. "You can't get angry at me for that one, you've not told me your story yet."

He was right too—Marco hadn't said a lick about the fiery power brimming under his wiry frame, nor had he given the Whitebeards a chance to suspect he had stumbled across the power of a Devil Fruit in his youth. Why would I rush to share that story?

For a moment, silence.

And then, a question. Almost a command.

"So, will I be hearing your story?"

And so Marco did tell him, though once he was pried into telling the story, there wasn't any nice deal for the towering, still-chuckling pirate captain to hear. Marco, born and raised on Applenine, had never been away from the island. That was, until the boy's 13th birthday when he and his friends had 'commandeered' an abandoned fishing ship and rowed out into the waves.

"We were rowing for nearly three, maybe four hours when we came across a small archipelago," said Marco. "My friends were eager to explore, especially because that had been the whole reason we'd set off, but there was something about the islands I didn't like. I tried to talk them down, but they were quickly gone, scampering away to play pirates or Navy marines or something like that in the dunes. It was one of our favourites to play, though I'm not sure any of us had actually met any real pirates until that day. You see, most of them stayed to the paths to Rego Calbria—the ones we're on now, really—and our families didn't head into the city all that often. Then, when we did, my parents always told us to stay away from the south side. The bars and brothels are there, and any pirates that had come for trade would be on the prowl there, looking for a place to lie their head, or someone to talk to, or the next bottle to disappear into. Or someone to rob, once the berries had run out to do any of the other things they'd had planned.

"I'm not sure how long I waited on that archipelago beach," continued Marco, "but I was sure it was getting into the late afternoon by the time I realised my friends weren't coming back any time soon. It had already taken us hours to row out and I was worried that someone would notice us gone. My grandmother would, at very least, considering she always dished up the most beautiful spread for any of our birthdays. I didn't want to go very far from the boat, but I went looking for where they were off playing."

Newgate, who had been listening intently up to this point, cleared his throat. "Your friends weren't playing, were they?"

Marco shook his head. "No, they weren't. We didn't know it, and I suppose we simply couldn't have until we got there, but two pirates had been holed up on the archipelago for more than a few days. They had been hiding away from a crew they'd left, and more importantly, they were trying to bury a great treasure they'd stolen from their captain. When they caught me, and of course, they caught me as soon as I followed my friends' footsteps, they told me as much between hiccups and burps. They stunk, and more than once they cut me, but from the looks of things I had been spared the worst of it by staying on the boat. My friends, a lot less so. One had been burned a little by some kind of cigar, another had several long bleeding gashes up his arm from one of the pirates' sabres. I think I cried at first, but my friends seemed to have already run out of tears a long time before that.

"After some time, I think probably thanks to the rum they'd been swigging down, the two men got bored. One, two, maybe three last cuts for us and they wandered off to find something to kill and eat . Mercy they decided there wasn't enough meat on us to cook up into any real meal, though maybe they were just saying that to scare us. They certainly succeeded, and any tears my friends and I had been holding back came free again once they walked off into the darkness.

"Maybe an hour or two passed before we realised they weren't close by. There had been some sounds out in the archipelago's jungle, great baying cries, but we didn't see the pirates or any other beast come. One of my friends, Leslie, he was a little older and he started telling us that we could cut the bindings with some rocks close by. It took some convincing for me and the others but he eventually got us to sidle over and get them, and they cut the ropes just like he said they would. Only Leslie and I were still tied up when we started hearing the pirates coming back, so we didn't have time to look for anywhere good to hide. The others ran, and I think I would have done the same, and Leslie found a tall tree to clamber up, but I was stuck under a rock that based a copse.

"I was never that good at holding my breath but that night, while the pirates recounted their gold and berries to make sure not a coin or note had been stolen and talked about how they were going to flay us and burn us and torture us if they found us, I kept my breathing as quiet as I could under the rock. They didn't look very hard —the rum was all but empty —but I knew if I showed myself they wouldn't have to either. So I kept my breathing slow and steady, trying to keep it half as slow as the waves in the distance, and whenever they stopped talking between snarls, I stopped breathing.

"It wasn't until morning that they decided all the coins and all the notes were there and they set off looking for us. My friends, I think, had already got the boat by then and left, because the pair quickly came back and spoke about finding the tracks on the beach. They were groggy, so they didn't look too hard, and I think if they had they likely would have spied me under the rock and I think they certainly would have seen Leslie hanging in the tree, his face red and his palms cut and scrapped from holding on so tight. Not to mention the slashes up his arms had raised to red wet welts by then, and I could see every time he moved his face scrunched in pain and he had to stop himself from yelling. I almost laughed to myself at one point, though I stopped it, when I thought that the tree had turned out to be much the poorer choice than any wet rock had been."

"No one came for you?" asked Newgate.

Marco nodded and continued: "Yes, yes, they came. That afternoon, Leslie said he saw them coming for some time, but that afternoon some of the other people from the village came to the archipelago. The pirates were gone by the time they arrived, though Leslie and I hadn't moved from the panic. The fear that they may come back, and burn and cut and snarl again, kept us rooted under the rock and up the tree for the whole of the day, nearly until it had turned dusk again and the moon was hanging over the apple.

"It was in those hours that I made the mistake. By the time we had set out from Applenine, it was lunchtime, and, of course, we missed it because we wanted to walk down and make sure the boat we were taking would still float. So, a day gone, fear wrapped around me under that rock, I liked the look of anything that wasn't going to make much noise. To me, there was only really one option —a funny-looking fruit sprouting on the ground, wrapped in nearly a hundred fanning trough-shaped leaves. They were fleshy when I peeled them, quietly, softly, but the inside barely made a noise as I scooped out the juice inside and sucked on some. It was maybe the most disgusting thing I had ever eaten in my life, but it filled me with a fire that kept me going until the afternoon sun beating down on the rock turned into the Applenine rescue party that had come looking for us."

"A Devil Fruit," the Whitebeard captain said, and Marco nodded at this too.

"A damned Devil Fruit, yes. If the pirates weren't enough, I walked away from the archipelago cut, bruised, and burned, suddenly friendless—the rest all left Applenine soon after, by boat or otherwise—and quite unable to swim."

"Your power though, the Bird-Bird power, that's a strength men sail the Grand Line looking for their whole lives. I know many men and women alike who would go through the day you suffered to take a bite of one."

Marco glowered, his eyes firmly locked on Rego Calbria. "Tell them they can hide under that damned rock then."

—

All rights to One Piece reserved by Eiichiro Oda and Shueisha's Jump Comics.