"How did it come to this?" I grumbled as I unfurled the sails when we were far enough from port. Yes, we. The grannies, after telling me the absolutely absurd price of information on Nico Robin, proposed I worked off the price. Somehow they convinced me to be a Collector. Hunting down anyone who didn't pay on time or pay enough and make them pay.
Honestly it was kind of scary how ruthless the grannies seemed to be.
Anyway, now I had two of the grannies in tow, who were busy getting comfortable in the small cabin on my ship. I'd taken to calling them Granny and Gammy because they refused to give me their names. Apparently they were some of their best Collections officers, even though Gammy had to use a walker and Granny could hardly hear worth a damn.
"What the hell was that?!" I yelled as the ship bucked upwards, sending me scrambling to grab some of the barrels of supplies that were thrown across the deck. Afterwards I slammed open the door of the cabin, "Wha- where the hell did you get an oven!"
"Oh, hello deary," Granny smiled pointing the horn held up to her ear towards me, "I didn't quite catch that, but I'm making brownies if you would like some. You are looking mighty thin."
"I- Yeah, sure. Some brownies sound nice," She just cocked her head in response, so I repeated myself a bit louder. And by a bit louder, I mean I yelled it at her.
"Alrighty then deary, just remember to keep our course," Putting down her ear horn she turned on the oven, which somehow had power and started pulling various tools and ingredients out of her purse, which was definitely too small to hold all that stuff.
With a sigh I turned heading back onto the deck. Only to belt out a curse as during the few minutes I had been in the cabin the once clear sky had turned to a raging storm, which I had somehow not noticed while talking to Gammy.
Jumping at one of the ropes as it came undone I tried to get the sail back under control. "Fuck you!" I yelled to the storm as a stray barrel was sent rolling into my shin.
The next few weeks were exceptionally long, the old ladies turned basically all the drinkable water into tea and demanded the rest was for cooking. On top of having to choke down tea for weeks on end I had to endure Gammy constantly trying to feed me, basically shoving food down my throat in my sleep.
Until finally we reached our destination, which, honestly? Was worse. Alabasta. A horrible hot desert. It always just felt like everything sucked when the Grand Line was involved.
I managed to find a small cover that my ship could fit in, making sure the mooring line was secure.
The rest of the day consisted of walking with the grannies to Nanohana and renting a pair of camel's to bring us to Alubarna. All through the grueling desert sun. Did I mention I hate deserts? Because I hate deserts!
It took almost two days to make it to the heart of Alabasta, making our way into the city was a whole different task entirely. "How are we going to do this?" I asked, passing the pair of opera binoculars Gammy had pulled from purse to Granny. The problem being guards, and the likelihood that they would recognize me from my bounty poster. It wasn't everyday a Marine betrayed the Navy- and got away with it at least.
Granny seemed to think for a moment, before turning to Gammy and starting to rummage around her purse, much to the near deaf ladies' chagrin. Pulling out a manila folder she quickly flipped through it, "While this is a few months old, they apparently swap guards every-"
"Wait, wait, wait!" I stopped her before she could continue, "This isn't some bank heist book, we can't just slip in while they are changing guards!"
The information broker shot me a look drier than the desert, "I was going to suggest we fight our way in… The guards patrolling the walls are furthest away 10 minutes after every change of the guard," She remarked, closing the folder to emphasize her point.
"Ah," I sounded out, "Sure… I'll leave it to you."
"Well, all I can say for now is that we need to wait for the next change of the guards," She said, pulling a steaming cup of tea out of one of the little pockets on her dress. How warm it was still warm I have no idea.
We didn't have to wait long, making our way out of the ruins we had been hiding in towards one the four stairways up into Alubarna proper. I started my way up the stairs, Gammy close behind, my hands hovering near the rod clipped to one of my belt loops. "Excuse me," Granny cleared her throat from behind me. Turning I saw that she was still at the bottom of the stairs, looking at me expectantly as she nodded to her walker.
With a sigh I went back down, picking her up, as well as grabbing her walker. Said walker almost toppling me due to its unexpected weight, "God! How heavy is this thing!" I protested as I started back up the stairway.
She chuckled as I adjusted the walker in my grip, "Well I can't tell you all my tricks, can I deary?"
Trudging up the too tall stairway we made our way to the top with no troubles, the guards paying us no heed as I set down Granny and her walker and we slowly made our way out of earshot of the two. "All that planning and waiting for nothing," I sighed as I happily took a moment to rest in the shade provided by the surrounding buildings.
"S-so… Who are we searching for?" I asked, taking out my canteen and taking a swing of oh so refreshing water.
"He never gave us his true name, he's an older fellow, graying brown hair, a little heavy set, a burn scar over his left cheek," Granny said, repeating the information to Gammy by basically screaming into her ear trumpet.
Reaching into Gammy's purse again she withdrew a transponder snail, depositing it on her walker, "You two can search the south, I will search the north. If her transponder snail goes off just grab it, is that alright deary?"
"Alright," I answered, and with that Granny started hobbling north, or at least what I assumed to be north. Turning to Gammy I waited for her to lead the way, only to realize she yet again probably didn't hear what Granny said.
"We are going to search the south side of town!" I yelled, getting a perplexed look from the old lady as she turned her ear trumpet towards me.
"What was that deary?" She asked, "I don't quite know what you said darling, but seeing as she's going north I think we should search the south!"
"Wha- I just said that!"
With a little pep in her step, for someone who practically hobbled everywhere at least, Gammy started to lead the way, "This way deary!"
This was my life now, wasn't it? I did follow the old woman, humoring her as we stopped to look at various stalls selling fabrics and herbal teas. It felt more like a shopping trip than working as an underground debt collector. I still kept an eye out for a man of similar description to the man described to us.
"POI at four twenty deary," Gammy mumbled as she was checking some avocados, "Cowboy hat."
Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible- which was hard while being 7 feet with change -I scanned the crowd. It took me a moment but I did find who Gammy was talking about, a woman in a leather tube top and short skirt. A cowboy hat resting on her head as she sat at what looked to be a café reading the newspaper.
Taking a moment to consider how to approach this- she is a mass murderer after all -I decided to go with the most direct approach, by simply walking up to her. As I got close Nico Robin folded up her newspaper, tucking it under her arm as she got up and made her way into the crowd in one fluid motion.
Trying to follow her I trudged through the crowd, trying my best to slip through the crowded streets as easily as she did. Sadly she had the advantage of being a normal size, while I had to push through the crowd to make any headway, getting some rather annoyed shouts.
I followed the Devil Child through the crowd, eventually the- I guess it could be called a chase, the chase led into an alley. And nothing. She was just gone, the other end of the alleyway had a rather large wall blocking it and I doubted she could have scaled it in less than ten seconds. How the hell?
My head abruptly jerked to the side as a pair of hands gripped my head, seconds later something wrapped around my legs sweeping them out from under me. Cursing as I roughly slammed into the ground and groaning as another pair of hands coming out of the ground of all things grabbed my head jerking it to the side alongside the other pair. "Ow!" I shouted, "The fuck did I do!"
"Why were you following me?" Someone that I assumed to be Nico Robin said from above me, as she yet again painfully twisted my neck.
"Fucking stop that first! Breaking my neck won't work you bitch," I growled through the pain, as yet again her tried to jerk at my neck.
"One last check couldn't hurt," She responded, flipping me over, yep that was definitely Nico Robin.
"Now, why are you following me?" She questioned again, as the arms holding onto my head disappeared.
Coughing a little and rolling my head to try to get rid of the soreness I answered, "I just wanted to talk with you, geez."
She didn't respond, staring down at me expectantly.
"I swear!" Wiggling a little so I could at least point at one of my pockets continuing to explain, "I have some scrolls. I don't know quite what they are written in but I think it's the Void Language, and you're the only one I know of that can read it!"
As I spoke an arm came from the ground and started to rummage around my pockets, pulling out the set of scroll that I had liberated from the eggheads camp all those months ago. Handing them to herself she opened one and looked it over for a tense few moments. Making a slight noise that might have had a note of intrigue, she rolled the scroll back up as the arms holding me down dissipated.
As I got to my feet I stretched, trying to get rid of the little aches and pains from the woman's iron grips. "Damn you have a grip like a vice," I mumbled, as I cracked my neck, "Like damn."
"I would like to thank you for this information," Nico Robin said, as I dusted myself off, giving her a little thumbs up, "But I can not fully trust someone who is famous for mutiny and murdering their own friends."
"Wait no, that's fak-"
I was cut off as Nico Robin screamed, striking herself in the face at the same time. "Guards! Help! Someone help me!"
I froze for a moment, a little flabbergasted. What was she doing? "Hey! Stop that!" I said, grabbing one of her arms, my other hand covering her mouth. I could feel her lips curl up into a small smile.
"Good luck," she said, her voice muffled through my hand.
A moment later, someone shouted from behind me, "Hey! You! Stop what you're doing and let her go!"
AN: I do apologize for the long update time, but I hope you enjoy this latest installment of The Man Leviathan.