Finally omg.
Thanks for reading, join my discord, and thank you for everyone on p atreon for voting for this chapter's illustration. It will be a good one.
Speaking of which, lampalot7 oh-so-kindly did some sort of magic and helped me put together a workskin for the story on ao3! Expect to see a really cool looking version of this story over there soon.
Thanks, Sherlock.
X
"You flashy bastards! You just left me here!? I'll kill you! If you ever—whomph!"
Zoro gagged Big Nose again with a plank of wood, which I was fine with. Normally I would have liked to talk to him about whatever he was saying before—about Shanks—but there was other stuff that I was thinking about right now.
The mystery squares hadn't given up yet. That pissed me off.
I was pouting and grumbling to myself as I pulled Takeru onto the ship. Everyone else was looking at me strangely but I felt too grumpy to explain myself properly.
「99+ items have been added to the ship's treasury!」
"Is that everything?" Nami asked from somewhere higher up on the Going Merry.
"I think so!" Koby answered, speaking loudly enough for her to hear.
"Eeee—Everyone!" Usopp shrieked. He ran up to the railing and waved down at us. "They're here! The marines are here! I mean, they're still pretty far away for now, but…"
「Time Limit: 1H:46M:26S:」
"Shit!" Nami cursed. She grabbed the telescope from him and tried to get a better look. "We're not gonna make it! It'll be impossible for us to not seem suspicious."
We all boarded the ship. Nami started shouting at people and telling them what to do so that we could sail away as quickly as possible.
She was still keeping an eye on the marine ship with a compass in hand.
"We're sailing south!" she yelled.
"But aren't the Conomi islands west of here?" Koby questioned her.
"There's no time for that!" Nami snapped. "We have to make it out safely, first. "If we go straight to Conomi, the marine vessel will be able to catch up to us. If we go south… our caravel is faster! We can make a getaway and circle back around later."
"No," I told them. "Go straight toward Nami's village. Don't turn the ship. Not even a little bit."
「You are not sailing under a flag! [Infamy] is not being used.」
I knew what the mystery squares were gonna say before they said it.
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the main story quest [Arlong Park] has commenced.」
I didn't care.
"That's crazy!" Usopp told me. "Didn't you hear Nami? We'll get caught! What if—"
He cut himself off once he realized how quiet everyone else was being.
Nami was silently shaking.
"Fine. Fine!" she gave in. "I… hope you know what you're doing."
Zoro scoffed.
"Captain's orders…"
Koby nodded at me cautiously, and I nodded back with a big smile on my face.
I walked up to Merry's head and got ready for whatever was gonna come next.
X
"Sir! There's a caravel leaving the island at full sail."
Fullbody frowned.
"It couldn't be the pirates, could it?" he asked. It wouldn't make sense for them to stick around this long. They were obviously rushing, though, which was suspicious.
…No. No matter which way you sliced it, there was something off about a ship sailing away from an island the morning after a pirate raid.
The same marine officer shook his head.
"We don't know, Sir. There's no jolly roger, but it's very possible that they've switched out the sails."
The lieutenant was handed a pair of binoculars, which he used to inspect the vessel in question.
Fullbody hummed.
"What's their course?" he asked.
"West, Sir. They don't seem to be evading us. Rather, it looks like they're following a route."
Fullbody clicked his tongue. This was the time for quick action.
He made up his mind.
"Approach them," he ordered. "When we're within distance, hand me the megaphone transponder snail."
X
The sea was calm, and yet, with how tightly I had to press my hat onto my head to stop it from flying away, I knew we were going pretty quickly.
Even still…
I looked at the marines in the distance. It had been about an hour or so, and now we could make out the details on their ship pretty clearly.
And now, with every minute that passed, I could see them getting a little closer. It made sense, since we weren't exactly moving in the opposite direction.
I still hadn't moved from where I stood.
It wasn't much longer until they were almost nearby.
"Sailors!" a really loud voice spoke to us from the marine ship. "Stop your advance immediately for a routine inspection. We have received reports of suspicious activity in your area. Once we're finished, we'll leave you to your devices."
"Keep going," I told everyone. I was sure that they were nervous, but they listened.
"Sailors!" the same voice called out to us again a little while later once they noticed that we weren't doing what they were telling us to do. "This is a warning! If you do not comply, we will take it as a sign of aggression and you will be treated as pirates. We will open fire."
"Are they serious?" Koby asked nervously.
"We won't have time to protect ourselves! They'll sink us!" Usopp added.
"Keep going," I said again.
X
"Sir—Sir! There's a… there's a man standing on the figurehead!" the marine with the telescope shouted. "He's wearing a—" the marine gasped. "It's the one from the bounty poster! Straw Hat Luffy!"
Fullbody's blood ran cold.
Straw Hat…?
This wasn't just a pirate ship. This was a pirate ship housing the largest bounty in the east blue.
"Fire!" Lieutenant Fullbody commanded.
X
A cannonball was shot straight at the figurehead where I was standing; I heard a bunch of shrieking behind me.
I caught the cannonball.
There was enough force behind it that the ship still shook a little, but I absorbed most of it with my arm. The Going Merry was totally fine.
I looked over my head and grinned. Everybody was staring at me with open jaws and wide eyes.
"Y—You!"
I squared my shoulders and wound my arm back.
"All hands on deck! Cannons at the ready! Fire—"
I threw the cannonball right back at them.
Boom!
The cannonball flew at double the speed and shot straight through the side of the marine ship; there was nothing they could do to stop it. Even from all the way over here, we could see the giant hole it left behind. I could just about hear the sound of the crew screaming and running around like headless chickens as they tried to stay above water.
I spun around and smiled proudly at my crew, planting my fists on my hips.
"Not bad, huh?"
There was a soft thump as Usopp fell to his knees.
"The devil fruit sure is something else," I heard Nami mumble breathlessly. She and Koby looked just about as worn out as Usopp. I seriously didn't know what she was talking about, though. I didn't use it.
The marine ship was super damaged. They started sailing away; they were probably scared of sinking if they stuck around any longer.
That was pretty easy.
Zoro was staring at me seriously. It looked like he wanted to say something, but—
「Congratulations!」
「You have !?」
「%?#?」
I scrunched my brow. I thought something was up earlier, but… there was something really wrong with the mystery squares.
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the main story quest [Arlong Park] has commenced.」
That part was still working, unfortunately. Boo.
And then a sea king sprung up from the water.
Like, just now. It was really sudden. Considering how super duper huge it was, it was a shock that it didn't make more of a fuss earlier.
Hm. It might have been the biggest sea king I'd ever seen before, actually. Not that I'd seen many. There was the one from the coastline around Foosha, then there was… hm… hm…
It was just there for a moment, water from its body dripping onto the deck of our ship. It pulling itself up from the sea was enough to shake everything a little.
It wouldn't be still for long, though.
…I found it kind of strange that it didn't have a mystery square.
Someone let out a really pathetic scream. Probably Koby.
"What do we do!?" the kid asked.
"That thing's huge!" Usopp observed.
"Turn around!" Nami begged.
Hold on.
"Stop!" I shouted at them. My face was super serious right now. "Didn't I say so earlier? No matter what happens, this ship isn't changing course!"
The three of them dropped to her knees.
"We're gonna die… He's crazy… We're gonna die…"
Zoro stepped forward. His face was pale and sweaty but he was smiling. His hand rested on the hilts of his swords.
"Aye aye, Captain."
I couldn't help but find the way he said it funny, so I laughed. I quickly spun around to face the big sea king that was eyeing us like fresh meat.
"Let's…go!"
The Sea King opened its mouth.
I punched the floppy thing behind its teeth.
My fist stretched out as I swung it and got it stuck in the back of the creature's throat. I didn't try to use haki or anything, but even so, I felt its massive skull crack around my knuckles. My hand dug halfway to the back of its head until its entire body couldn't help but be carried away.
The rest of the sea king got flung out of the water. The suddenness of something so large shooting out of the sea made a huge wave that almost flipped us over.
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the main story quest [Arlong Park] has commenced.」
The others finally got back to their feet. Everything happened so quickly that everyone wasn't given a chance to understand what had just happened.
"Wha—"
Two more sea kings came up. Three more.
"What the hell's going on!?" Nami shrieked.
I punched those ones too.
Everyone got knocked right back onto their butts. All the super huge bodies crashing back down into the water was really making the Merry fight, but it was doing a pretty good job. I was happy with this ship, I decided.
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the main story quest [Arlong Park] has commenced.」
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the main story quest [Arlong Park] has commenced.」
「The effects of ?#?#? have activated!」
「Your heart beats to the rhythm of ?#?#?#?!」
A giant shadow was cast over us. Another ginormous wave had formed. It was the same kind that took out Buggy's ship before, only this one was bigger.
On one hand, I couldn't fight the sea. I'd tried it before, after all.
On the other hand, I wouldn't let some stupid box tell me what to do.
While my crew was shouting and arguing about something or other, I needed to focus and think.
The wave was really really really big which meant that I had to get rid of it with something really really really really big…ger.
A normal fist wouldn't be big enough. I needed a big fist.
X
"Divine Swiftness!"
Takeru connected, and Yamato knocked the air out of my lungs again. I couldn't even react. Even now, she was still way too fast for me.
Since my fists were small, even if she didn't dodge, every punch I threw at her had to be dead on otherwise she'd just smack it out of the way. It didn't matter how strong it was or how far I could stretch.
"Is that all you've got?" she taunted me, smiling. She knew that I'd get mad, which I did.
I pouted.
There was still a little less than a year before we promised that we'd head out, but still… this wasn't good enough! I had to be stronger. I had to be better.
"I'll get you!" I promised.
And then, I had an idea.
A great idea.
If she could smack my hand out of the way even if it was strong… I'd just make it so that I could hit her even if I missed!
Or something.
X
I bit my thumb, punctured the skin a little, and blew. And blew. And blew. I didn't stop until it was more or less big enough to fight the wave.
"Luffy?"
"What are you—?"
"Oi!"
"Holy crap!"
「The Colour of Conquerors swells within you!」
My haki went straight to my really really really really big fist.
"Gomu Gomu no—" I stopped. What was I supposed to call this thing? I never made it this big before.
"Luffy!" Nami sobbed.
"Hm?" Oh. I was wasting time.
"Gigant Kanabo!"
I punched the wave. My fist was almost as big as the ship; that part hit the wave first.
And then an impact three times as big smashed against the wave in the area beyond where I actually hit it.
Using haki, this was my technique to smack yamato even when she was being sneaky.
The entire wave practically exploded away from us. The Going Merry wasn't touched at all; it was able to sail past the giant cloud of mist that I made with just a bit of rockiness caused by me throwing my punch and maybe that other big wave that I just caused really really far away, but I wasn't smart enough to tell for sure if that had anything to do with it.
「Notice: this side quest cannot be accepted until the—」
「The effects of ?#?#? have activated!」
「Your heart beats to the rhythm of ?#?#?#?!」
「Error!
Error!
Error!
Error!
Error!」
「The program has stopped responding.」
「System Failure]
A problem has caused the program to stop working. The program will be temporarily unavailable as diagnostics are performed.」
「[System Update]
The system will be optimized via consumer data and error reports. Please be patient as the newest version is being developed.」
And then there was nothing.
Like, really, really nothing. The sea was calm. There were no more sea kings popping out of nowhere.
The mystery squares were gone.
For a moment, we had complete silence.
"Ah. I'm hungry," I decided, then walked toward everyone else. "Kaya gave us food, right?"
They weren't answering. They were all staring at me blankly. Even Zoro.
I tilted my head.
"Come on, guys! What's wrong? Let's eat meat and celebrate!"
The mystery squares, finally gave up, after all.
"Celebrate what!?" Nami screeched, finally snapping out of it. "Not dying? That was insane! What the hell just happened! None of that was remotely normal!"
Zoro was the first to go back to normal.
"Let's see if there's booze."
I just laughed.
X
"Hah. At least someone knows a good meal when it's put in front of their face."
Sanji smirked amusedly at the strange dog as it ate the plate of sea bass with sauce vierge that he placed in front of it. The old bastard would want him back in the kitchen soon, but it was nice to watch someone actually enjoy his food for once… even if it was just a dog. He took a moment, sat at the edge of the marine captain's desk and pulled out a cigarette.
It was probably in poor taste to do this in someone else's place, but the marines had been causing no short number of inconveniences this morning. They couldn't complain too much if he lit one up.
He eyed the large ashtray already half-full on the desk.
Besides: that captain was a pretty heavy smoker himself, wasn't he?
"You're a strange looking one, aren't you?" he mused aloud, knowing that he wouldn't get much of a response from the animal. It blinked at him blankly for a moment before going back to its meal.
It was a pretty thing with lustrous, white fur. He didn't even know what breed it could have possibly been—something from the west blue, maybe? Who could say. It was big, with prominent horns over its brow.
He knew better than to touch it, though; it almost bit his hand off when he tried to comb his fingers through its mane.
Still, it was incredibly well-behaved beyond that. Even now, it ate the plate in as graceful a way as any creature could with no hands to hold a fork or a knife.
"..Hm?"
There was a commotion outside. He heard marines running around the deck on the other side of the office door.
His curiosity getting the best of him, he stepped outside, not minding the dog as it passed him by. A bunch of sailors were running around with their heads cut off doing… well, he didn't really know what they were doing.
He stopped one of them with a hand on the shoulder. The marine looked a little miffed but slowed down anyway.
"Hey. What's going on here?"
The marine narrowed his eyes.
"You're that chef kid, right?" he asked the blonde. "It's best if you head back down to the restaurant for now. We're answering an S.O.S from a nearby marine ship. We're directing her in our direction before she sinks."
Sanji blinked as he processed the information. Though he couldn't see it, the dog did the same a little further behind.
X
"Are you sure? The pirate that did all of this was Straw Hat Luffy?" Captain Smoker asked Lieutenant Fullbody. The two officers were seated across from each other in the white-haired man's office; the marines were locked out of the restaurant as it had to cater to actual customers in the day's evening hours, so both crews were making do on board and by the dock for now.
With a grimace, the captain glared out the nearby window that gave him a clear view of the vessel that Fullbody's crew came with.
Though the sun would be setting soon, there was still plenty enough light to make out the damage that had been done to the vessel: it looked as though it was the work of a single cannonball that they were unfortunate enough to have received straight to the side of the hull. The damage was contained enough that they could sail to the nearest dock, thankfully, but it was clear that it wouldn't be much longer before the thing would be totally submerged. Even now, marines from both groups were doing their best to salvage what they could before it was gone forever.
Fullbody gnashed his teeth.
"Positive! We were responding to a distress call on the Gecko Islands—we got there as soon as we could—and we caught the assailants just as they were leaving. We tried to confront them, but that pirate, he—" the man cut himself off and bit his tongue.
Smoker leaned over his desk and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"'He' what? What's wrong? Just spit it out."
Smoker could feel his heartbeat quickening. He was close. This search would be worthwhile as long as he struck before Straw Hat knew what was coming.
"He threw the cannonball at us!" Fullbody suddenly shouted. "I'm—we saw it with our own eyes! We're not crazy… you have to believe us, Captain Smoker."
The admission made those listening still, but none more so than Smoker himself.
Such a thing sounded impossible… but he knew better. He thought back to his time back at Marineford and the monsters capable of doing such a thing.
One monster in particular.
The name Monkey D. Luffy made him swell with uneasiness in a way that he wasn't quite comfortable dissecting right now.
It couldn't be.
Before he could get another word in, the door creaked open. He was about to give whoever it was a proper dressing down until he noticed that it was Tashigi's dog coming back in and curling itself up on the puppy mattress in the corner of the room. Was the door not closed properly? The mutt was tall enough to reach the handle…
Smoker was too caught up in the matter at hand to pay it any mind right now, though.
"I believe you," he finally said, turning his attention back onto Fullbody. "We'll catch that man and his crew."
"Sir," the lower-ranked officer uttered appreciatively with a nod.
Smoker leaned back into his chair and grabbed another couple of cigars. He tried his best to calm his nerves.
"What else can you tell me, Lieutenant?"
"They were gunning it headed west; nothing we did could make them slow down, let alone change course," Fullbody reported, recalling the words of his men.
"They had their next destination in mind," Smoker concluded. "We can intercept them there."
He crushed his finished cigar nubs against the ashtray, both in one hand, before pulling out an East Blue map from the drawer of his desk and laying it flat between them. The man tapped the end of a new set of coronas against the illustration of the Gecko Islands demonstratively before cutting their caps off.
"If they headed west, it could only be one place," the captain said, dragging a finger across the map before stopping at the only landmass on that end of the chart. "We'll find Straw Hat Luffy on the Conomi Archipelago!"
Neither man noticed the dog suddenly propping itself back onto its feet and leaving the room.
X
The Baratie was always lively at this time of day, just as it was lively from the moment they opened 'till the time they closed. As far as restaurants went, it was the cream of the crop.
The difference was that the lunch crowd had left and had been replaced with those here for dinner: the highest paying guests that were often enough either important in some social sphere or trying to impress someone who was.
There was a constant, habitual buzz of conversation that did more to add to the ambiance than to take away from it. It was a good thing that most would find it inoffensive since it would be highly unlikely that any patron would be inspired to cut their discussion short.
And yet, all noise at the Baratie suddenly stopped on a dime.
The cause was the individual who so unceremoniously entered the establishment, their appearance so jarring that onlookers couldn't help but stop and stare.
It was a woman dressed to the nines in a fashion wholly unsuited to the current venue, but that was about as much as anyone could relate back to the appearance of a normal person. She was impossibly tall with horns like that of a devil sticking out of her head.
Even the chefs and waitstaff, notoriously brusque as they were, shared unsure looks amongst themselves as they tried to come up with a way to react to such a novel situation. The East Blue was wholly accustomed to abnormalities such as these.
The exception was a well-dressed, blond-haired man who approached the woman with a confident step. He put out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray as he passed it by so as not to inadvertently offend a potential customer with the smoke.
"Welcome, Mademoiselle," he greeted her with a bow, the tone of his words as suave as could be. "Do you have a reservation? I'm sure a lovely lady such as your—sWHOOH!"
A series of gasps resounded as, in an absurd display of strength, the strange woman grabbed the blonde by the shoulders and lifted him clean off his feet. She brought him to eye level where his look of pure shock was met with her cheery grin.
"Hello! You wouldn't happen to have a map, would you?"
"A map?" He mumbled unsurely, trying his best not to show signs of an overreaction. "I'm not quite sure—"
"I'm trying to go to this place called 'The Conomi Archipelago'. Have you heard of it? Do you know how to get there?"
As the strange conversation developed, some of the chefs went back to the kitchen to grab the owner. Someone had to be able to de-escalate this, right?
"More or less," the blonde answered slowly. Now that he got a better look at her, she seemed familiar somehow. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, though. " It's northwest of here… about half a day away depending on the speed of the ship. But why—"
"Great!" she cheered, cutting him off again. "You guys must have a boat, right?"
"There's the one we use to run errands," he answered again. He was allowing himself to fall victim to the odd back and forth.
"Take me to that one, then," she decided. "Then we'll go to Conomi Archipelago!"
His brain stalled as the words registered in his head. In the meantime, she shuffled him around until he was being held underarm like some sort of log.
"Wait!" he called out to her. "'We'?"
She paused mid step.
"Hm?"
"I can't just leave, Miss," he tried to explain calmly. "I have a job, you see. Even if it wouldn't be for more than a day, I'm afraid I won't be able to put my commitments aside. Not even for a pretty thing like you."
She make a shocked face as if only now realizing the enormity of the task she was about to thrust upon a complete stranger. She then bowed awkwardly, doing her best to make it evident that she was trying to bow to the person stuffed under her armpit.
"Sorry!" she apologized in what seemed to be a genuine fashion before running off with him anyway.
"You—!"
The blonde's complaints fell on deaf ears.
The doors to the kitchen slammed open right as she left.
"Hey!" shouted the owner, moving as quickly as he could with his peg leg. "You get back 'ere with my shithead!
X
"It's settled, then," Smoker concluded. The man stood up and rolled the map back up. Fullbody braced his legs to do the same. "We'll round up the men and ambush Straw Hat Luffy with numbers on our side. If we take my—"
BOOM!
The marine captain's orders were cut off as a violent tremor ran through the ship, shaking the ground and sending furniture and various stationery flying across the walls. The two men were forced to grab onto the desk else they meet a similar fate.
"What the hell was—"
Smoker didn't even finish his own exclamation before he stormed out of his office, Fullbody not far behind.
He pointed at the closest marine and howled, "Someone tell me what's—"
Again, he didn't finish. The marine was wide-eyed and slack-jawed, staring up at something behind him. Smoker could only turn around to see what it was.
He made a strangled noise once he did. His clenched teeth fell apart, allowing his smokes to fall onto the deck.
The masts were gone. Not damaged: gone. Smashed clean off, from the looks of it. All three of them.
What in the hell…
"Hey! Hey~! Mister Smoker!"
His head whipped from left to right in an effort to find where the voice was coming from. When he found what he was looking for, he just about screamed.
There was a woman on a smaller motorboat in the waters not far from them. She was waving at them animatedly with a big smile on her face.
He really didn't think that she should have been smiling. He was so pissed off that he barely noticed the borderline catatonic blonde chef hanging onto the side of her boat for his dear life.
The woman had long and wavy white hair, wrapped around bright red horns and tied up neatly in a ponytail with a golden headpiece. Her shoes, pants and jacket were over-the-top with leathers and studs, and he was sure that the tank top that she wore beneath that was somehow just as gaudy and just as expensive.
He was sure because he had to pay for it—in energy and patience, if not in cash. Doskoi Panda branding ran from her head to her toes: the same Doskoi Panda merchandise that supposedly went missing on Mirrorball island.
Smoker wasn't an idiot. He was able to put two and two together right away.
"Thanks for the ride!" she shouted loudly, somehow finding the audacity to act appreciative. "And, uh… sorry about the ship! I couldn't let you chase after Luffy, is all."
His blood ran cold.
He thought back to the first time he saw the dog: back in Loguetown, coincidentally on the same day that he received his orders concerning Straw Hat Luffy. The dog followed him. Listened to him. Threw off his route. And now it stopped him right in his tracks when the opportunity presented itself.
The dog wasn't just a dog. It was a pirate—an ally of Straw Hat Luffy—and a zoan devil fruit user.
More than strength or size, the most freakish part about this woman was the mental fortitude needed to act like a regular mutt with less than half a brain between the ears for as long as she did. It would have been something to think about had this all not painted a terrifying picture of her supposed captain.
Monkey D. Luffy had played him from the start.
He knew that Smoker, as a man who ate a logia, would be the only marine in the East Blue capable of doing anything to slow him down. So he took preemptive measures. How many steps ahead was that man to have been able to plan out every move so far in advance?
Straw Hat would be the first pirate to get past him at Loguetown because he pulled Smoker out of Loguetown and purposely stranded him somewhere long enough to get behind him. The marines were no longer standing between a hundred and fifty million beri man and the Grand Line.
"Damn it!" he cursed.
The doors of the Baratie burst open.
"Stop tha' woman!" the head chef bellowed.
Smoker was more than happy to comply. He turned into his logia form and chased after the boat as a cloud of thick, white smoke.
…But it was no use. The motorboat was much too fast and they had a head start; the pirate and her captive were long gone.
The marine was quick to circle back once he realized that the attempt was worthless. He materialized in front of an equally incensed head chef and crossed his arms.
"Zeff. My ship can't go anywhere," he said frankly. "If you don't want me to personally reinstate your bounty and drag you to Impel Down, you'll steer the Baratie toward Conomi right now."
Zeff grit his teeth.
He didn't take kindly to threats, pirate or not. With that said…
He spat over the edge of the dock and huffed.
"Men!" he hollered, grabbing the attention of every chef nearby. "Clear tha restaurant! We're gettin' our shithead back!"