Author's Notes: I'm glad folks continue to enjoy this story, and thank you to everyone who suggested Devil Fruit ideas; like I said, I have the Nerimans power-ups planned, but I might do omakes if I like your ideas - or I might even find a way to work them into the story officially, if I really like the idea!
Chapter 6: Cutting Your Teeth
Ship's Log; Day 28
Raided a Marine ship today and captured a very unusual prize...
"Aaaahhhh-hahahahahaha! Run, you peons! Flee the wrath of the Black Rose! Hahahahhaahaha!"
Whip-cracks accompanied Kodachi's words like physical punctuation, her trusty ribbon snapping at heels to make her victims jump and twist, cracking in front of faces to provoke an instinctive recoil, and lashing against their backs and buttocks as they ultimately turned and fled.
"She's clearly enjoying herself," Ukyo dryly observed, even as she deflected three incoming sword strikes with her battle spatula before laying their owners out with a deft twirl of her own weapon.
"What'd you expect? She was basically roleplaying this persona back in Nerima," Ryoga grunted in response, even as he brutally bludgeoned his way through the massed ranks of his enemies with swings of his weighted umbrella. "Hey, is it me or are there more of these jerks than usual?"
"Shampoo think so... not that it matter when they too-too weak!" the Chinese Amazon snarled for emphasis, punctuating her words with flying blows that sent men scattering like chaff in the wind. It didn't matter that they were armed and she wasn't; each sweep of her leg or jab of her fist sent two or three men flying through the air like ragdolls, bouncing across the deck.
"Don't get cocky, Shampoo! Like my old man taught me, little ants can have big bites!" Ranma chided her, even as he ducked beneath a cutlass slash that should have taken off his head before uppercutting the would-be assailant clean off the deck.
"How he do that?" an interested Chinese Amazon interrogated him, even as she punched out the latest Marine to try and grab her.
"Well, it's what he told me! ...Right before he poured honey over me and rolled me over a stinging ant's nest," Ranma confessed.
Everybody in earshot either winced, stared at Ranma, or did both.
"...I know I shouldn't ask this, but I'm going to anyway: why?" Ryoga complained.
"Well, he said it was to teach me to remember that numbers can give strength to the weak... but I think it was mostly because I managed to eat the last sweetroll before he could beat me up and take it off me," Ranma conceded.
"...No wonder you ran away to sea to become a pirate with a father like that!" the nearest marine declared.
Ranma promptly punched him in the face, causing him to collapse unconscious on the deck. "Mind your own business!"
And with that, combat resumed in full force, as five bored martial artists with varying degrees of authority issues vented their frustrations on an unwilling and helplessly defiant Navy crew. Unfortunately for the marines, despite Ranma's warnings against overconfidence, their numbers weren't enough to challenge the displaced teenagers, and after a relatively brief skirmish, the once-proud Navy ship was a veritable ghost vessel, its decks awash in the bodies of the unconscious Marines who had sailed it.
"Well, that was fun," Kodachi declared chipperly, even as she dusted off her hands. "So nice to get a little exercise in after long days at sea."
"I still think there were more of them than usual," Ryoga grumbled, checking his umbrella for dents.
"Actually, I think you're right, Ryoga - I know they were fighting harder than usual. They all fought to the last; none of them turned and ran away like they usually do when we cut loose," Ranma observed.
"That means there must be something really valuable aboard! Only a crew with something worth a lot of beries to protect would be this fanatical!" Nabiki chirped, eyes gleaming with gold-lust as she pictured whatever riches must await them in the hold.
"Where'd you come from!?" Ranma snapped, fingers curled into warding gestures, just like his fellow martial artists.
"Figures; all work is done, now here comes blister girl looking for prize," Shampoo grumbled.
"What do you mean, 'blister girl'?!" an indignant Nabiki demanded
"You always show up after all hard work is done. Like blister," Shampoo bluntly explained, giving her a flat stare whilst the other crewmembers all nodded in fellow feeling.
"I'm the quartermaster! Manual labor is your responsibility," the eldest girl primly responded.
"Quartermaster my foot! All you do is sit around reading and watching us do all the work," Ukyo scoffed.
"And without me, you'd run out of food and money within a week!" Nabiki snapped back.
Ranma rolled his eyes, stuck two fingers in the corners of his mouth, and whistled as loudly as he could. "Hey! Priorities! Loot now, bicker later!"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Ranma, C'mon, we need to resupply, and I'm not emptying this ship by myself," Ryoga grumbled, brusquely shouldering his way through the knot of girls and approaching the door to the ship's interior.
Though the girls continued to share stink-eyes that promised that this argument wasn't over yet, they mercifully chose to obey Ranma this time, and so followed their male counterparts into the hold.
It said... something... that the displaced residents of Nerima had adapted to a life of piracy after a month on the sea. Raiding pirate or marine ships was something they'd developed a routine for, which largely centered around Ranma and Ryoga's ability to launch volleys of cannonballs into the air, creating a rain of iron spheres that tore through sails, shredded rigging, and generally flung the enemy crew into chaos and confusion. True, cannons would have had a more lethal effect, but that wasn't necessarily a plus for a crew that had no interest in killing anybody - and the simple fact was that their distinct method of launching cannonballs gave them a rate of fire that outclassed anything save a full artillery embankment.
Subduing the crew came next, and was less trouble than one might have expected; after days of limited activity and forced proximity, the five martial artists who made up Ranma's "pirate crew" were generally chomping at the metaphorical bit to blow off some steam. Pounding random foes unconscious was genuinely stress relieving, and also okay by their own rather flexible moral codes. After all, they weren't killing anybody, so that meant there was no harm done. It wasn't really that different to the random brawls they used to have in Nerima.
Then came the post-battle looting, which itself had been refined over the past month. First priority was supplies - food, extra rope, nails, timber, medicine, anything that would be useful to keep the ship and its crew afloat. To soothe their consciences, they only took about half of this stuff, so their victims should hopefully be able to get back to civilization to restock. Next came anything that might be useful as entertainment during the long, dull hours spent simply drifting from place to place - which largely meant magazines and books, and was generally the least successful part of their haul. Finally there was anything of actual value - beries, usually.
Of course, having a routine for looting didn't change the fact that each ship's haul of booty was unique, as evidenced when the teens from Nerima found themselves in a face off with a terrified looking marine. He held a sword in both hands and it still visibly trembled in the air, face pale of a sheet and teeth chattering as he tried desperately to shield a small locked chest with his body.
"St-stay back!" he barked, eyes wildly darting back and forth until they looked nearly ready to pop from their sockets.
"Hey, buddy, let's not do anything stupid here," Ranma slowly and calmly said, holding up his hands in what he intended to be a concilliatory gesture.
"You'll have to kill me first! Aaaaagh!"
Screaming like a banshee, the marine charged at them, swinging his sword wildly... and promptly went down like a sack of potatoes as Ranma's fist landed squarely in his face, sending him toppling to the floor.
"What a drama queen," Kodachi sniffed, five sets of eyes incredulously snapping in her direction.
"Wonder what his problem was?" Ryoga muttered, poking the limp marine's head with his umbrella.
"Who cares? He must have been guarding something pretty valuable to be that desperate! Open it up and let's see, Ranma!" Nabiki ordered, grinning wildly as dreams of riches filled her head.
"Priorities, Nabiki! We'll do it when we're back on the ship - my old man always said it was the mark of a bad thief to get caught at the scene of the crime," Ranma chided her, even as he stepped forward and hoisted the chest onto his shoulders.
"I guess he would know," Nabiki admitted.
One finished looting session later...
"No sign of pursuit, Captain Saotome!" Umok's voice drifted down from the crow's nest, followed shortly by the imp himself.
"Alright then, let's see what was so precious that guy literally would have rather died than give it up to us," Ranma announced. He cracked his knuckles and then knelt down to study the sturdy lock clamping the lid in place.
"S' pretty small for something he was treating as so valuable," Ryoga commented, leaning on his umbrella.
"Perhaps it's a monthly payroll for a Navy base?" Kodachi suggested.
"Wouldn't that have been much better guarded? No, I think it's got to be something low-weight, but high value... like precious jewels!" Nabiki giggled, eyes gleaming with gold-lust as she hungrily clasped her hands together.
"Oooh, I'd love to have some jewelry! I've never had any before!" Ukyo gushed.
"We get nowhere just talking - airen, hurry up and open box!" Shampoo insisted.
Ranma rolled his eyes, but couldn't help an affectionate smirk. The lock was solid and sturdy, but he crushed it into useless pieces as easily as if it had been made of tinfoil. Casually tossing the mangled metal over the side and into the sea, he opened up the chest and reached inside to reveal its contents.
"...A fruit?" Ranma blurted incredulously.
"What you say?" Shampoo asked, speaking for everybody else.
Wordlessly, Ranma stood up and turned around to show them what he had. It was a massive fruit, shaped like a peach, but big enough that it was almost more than a single hand could hold. If that wasn't weird enough, it was jade green, and covered in spirals of black.
"...You gotta be kidding; that's the treasure?!" Nabiki groaned, covering her face with her hand and shaking her head in dismay.
"Maybe it's some kind of gourmet fruit? I remember in a history class that stuff like spices an' pepper used to be really, really expensive in the Age of Sail," Ukyo suggested.
"Or it could be that there's more to this than meets the eye," Umok interjected, drifting through the air until he was hovering just in front of Ranma.
"A fruit's a fruit, ain't it?" Ranma asked in response.
Umok shook his head, all three eyes fixed on the not-peach in Ranma's grip. "Not when it's radiating magic, it isn't."
"Magic?!" Ranma yelped.
"Oh, if you had my eyes... it glows like a burning coal! It's full of magic!" the imp insisted.
Nabiki blinked, then her face lit up in recognition. "Wait a minute... I remember reading about something like that... could this be a Devil Fruit?!"
"You mean, those magic super-power fruit thingies from your books?" Ukyo asked.
"I'd wager on it," Umok declared.
"No wonder that guy was so determined to guard it, or why a whole Navy ship would be carrying it!" Ryoga marveled.
"It must be worth a fortune!" Nabiki declared, the familiar glint of greed in her eyes.
"Given you only found reference to it in books of mythology? Almost certainly," Umok agreed.
Then Ranma pushed the not-a-peach into the imp's hands and Umok gave him a confused look. "Um... what am I supposed to do with it?"
"Aren't you gonna eat it?" Ranma asked innocently.
"Are you BLEEP nuts?!" Umok shot back, tossing the Devil Fruit back at Ranma as if it was red-hot.
"Hey, you said you need magic, this is full of magic, so wouldn't eating it give you a power boost?" Ranma retorted, even as he nimbly fielded the flying fruit.
"It's foreign magic, you BLEEP idiot! Even if it did work that way, I ain't putting that in my mouth! Not without serious study! Not telling what BLEEP could happen if I just up and take a bite!" the imp roared, gesticulating wildly.
"Not to mention, we could make a lot of money off of this!" Nabiki added, trying to snatch the Devil Fruit from Ranma's grasp.
"Okay, okay, it was only an idea!" Ranma protested, even as he held the Devil Fruit at arm's length above his head to keep it from his money-grubbing quartermaster's hands, even as she tried vainly to reach up and snag it from him. "We'll stick it back in the box and let Umok play with it until he figures out what the deal is, okay?"
"Only if promises he won't break it!" Nabiki spat, taking a break from her Azusa-like efforts to glare at the imp.
"I don't even have the tools to begin a proper dissective analysis," Umok grumbled.
Meanwhile...
In a sumptuous hall swathed in purple silk drapery, marines stood fast at attention, arms clasped behind their backs and looking every inch as professional as they could. That impression faded when one looked closer at their faces and saw the nervous pallor of their skins, and the haunted looks in their eyes. The tang of fear swirled through their air, a palpable undercurrent mingling with the cloying aroma of sweat and spoiling food.
"IMBECILES!"
As one, the marines flinched at the bellow that emanated from the center of the hall and echoed like thunder. The source of the sound, a corpulent hulk of a man who either had giant's blood somewhere in his ancestry or had devoted his life to attaining giant-like stature through sheer consumption, scowled blackly at all in sight.
The unfortunate marine bearing a transponder snail at the foot of a massive raised plinth, which encircled a truly enormous throne, almost fainted. Even the transponder snail looked visibly terrified, although it was hard to say if that was the snail's expression or its mimicry of the speaker on its counterpart.
"I'm sorry, Commodore Nelson! We fought to the last, but -"
"If you fought to the last, you would all be dead! As you have the impudence to still be speaking to me, that clearly isn't the case! I should have you all killed for this failure!"
"Commodore, we did our best! Who could have known that there were pirates this strong in the East Blue?!"
"Enough excuses! Did you at least get the identity of the heathen filth who dared to make off with my treasure?!"
"Y-yes, Commodore! It was the new crew that we're starting to hear word about - the strange pirates under Captain Ranma Saotome, the ones who don't fly a Jolly Roger or use a crew name! They've been terrorizing marines for sport at random across the East Blue!"
"Bah! Useless East Blue filth! Get out of my sight!"
The transponder snail let out the characteristic ka-lick of disconnection, shortly before its bearer fled the hall as fast as his legs could carry him.
Commodore Nelson Royale settled back in his throne, the reinforced wood of which groaned as he shifted his massive weight around. "All you East Blue scum are totally useless! You couldn't stop one miserable pirate who dares to tweak your own noses, and now he has dared to interfere with the mission of one connected to the Celestial Dragons themselves! This 'Captain Saotome' must be dealt with..."
One week later...
"Mmmhhhmmm! That hit the spot! It's so wonderful to get off that ship for a day!" Nabiki announced loudly, stretching her arms luxuriantly above her head.
Ranma chuckled and shook his head. "It was just a bath, Nabiki, nothing fancy - you're acting like you got a visit to one of them girly day spa things."
"I'm afraid I must agree with Nabiki Tendo, Ranma darling; spending so long at sea gives one a true appreciation for the simple pleasures of landbound life," Kodachi interjected with a soft smile.
"And nice meal at local restaurant is icing on cake," Shampoo added.
"I'll say; it means I don't have to cook it!" Ukyo giggled.
Even Ryoga had to chuckle at that quip. It made for a surprisingly domestic scene as the six teens from Nerima strolled through the streets of the latest village they had stumbled across in their meanderings around the East Blue. Back home, it would have been unthinkable for their motley group to be together without some greater threat to temporarily distract them from their tangled web of conflict. Yes, truly, all was peaceful...
Until a shaggy, grimy-looking man in a beat up trenchcoat and with a beard like a porcupine trying to copulate with a haystack lurched out of an alley and aimed a rifle at Ranma's head. "Don't make a move!"
Ranma stopped, eying this new assailant cautiously, gauging his every movement. 'Pretty sure I can take him, no troubles, but best to be safe...' "Something I can help you with, buddy?"
"Are you Captain Ranma Saotome of the Dirty Coward Pirates?" the stranger demanded, squinting at him down the barrel of his rifle.
"Who are you calling Dirty Coward Pirates?!" the indignant Ranma demanded.
"I told you we needed to decide on a name and a Jolly Roger already!" Kodachi sniffed.
"Not now, Kodachi!" Ranma snapped, glaring at her for a moment.
The rifle-wielding ragamuffin laughed a guttural guffaw. "Well blow me down, I knew it had to be you! You look just like yer picture in the paper! Easiest bounty I ever collected!"
"Paper!?" Nabiki demanded incredulously.
"The World Economy News Paper! What kind of rock you been living under, girly? Everybody reads it! The news coos carry it all over the world!"
"We have got to get a subscription to that!" Nabiki asserted.
"Well, that's yer problem - ain't no bounty on your heads, so whatever you do after I take yer boss in is yer-"
And that was when Ranma moved. Faster than a human eye could follow, he closed the distance between himself and their wanna-be assailant, reaching out to clasp and then crush the barrel of the stranger's gun in a single movement, right before Ranma's other hand shot out, grabbed the stranger by the collar, and hoisted him effortlessly into the air.
"-Business?! Hey, what'sa big idea!?"
Ranma's fist blurred into motion, and knocked the would-be bounty hunter unconscious in a single jab. Then he dumped the man on the ground, yanked open his trenchcoat, and began rifling through it.
"Lessee, it's gotta be here somewhere... there we are! There really is a newspaper!"
The other Nerimans crowded closer as Ranma uncrumpled the bundle of newsprint, which had clearly been hastily stuffed into an interior pocket, and began paging through it in search of the apparent bounties section. Moments later...
"Aha! Here we are... Captain Ranma Saotome. Wanted for theft, repeated destruction of government property, repeated assault on government officials, flying under false colors... having failed to give a proper crew name to identify himself with, his crew has been officially dubbed the Dirty Coward Pirates - the hell we are!"
"Somebody is going to change that name, and soon," Ryoga vowed, cracking his knuckles.
"I tell you, as soon as we start flying our own Jolly Roger and using our own name, they'll change it," Kodachi insisted.
"So, we all figured they'd put a price on your head, Ranma," Nabiki began.
"We did?" A confused Ukyo asked Shampoo, who shrugged in response.
Ignoring the distraction, Nabiki continued, "But how much are they actually willing to pay for you, anyway?"
"Um, lessee here... 9 million beries," Ranma announced.
"Huh... I guess that's a decent starting price," Nabiki conceded. "Anybody else think it's weird that beries seem to match Japanese yen, conversion-wise?"
"Any weirder than the rest of this place, you mean?" Ukyo asked, eyebrow raised.
"After all, public bathhouses would hardly seem appropriate for a place so apparently Western in aesthetic, and yet, here they are," Kodachi added.
"Huh, I missed this bit at the bottom... if Captain Saotome is delivered alive alongside the treasure he stole from the Marine vessel 'Indefatigable', to Commodore Nelson Royal on Sunshine Island, his bounty will increase to - 50 million beries?!"
Silence fell; it felt as if the whole town was holding its breath. And then...
"WHAT?!"
Ranma yelped as Nabik grabbed his collar and bodily yanked him around to face her, staring pure undiluted murder into his eyes. "You had better not be making this up, Saotome..."
"It's right here in black and white!" Ranma protested, thrusting the paper into Nabiki's line of vision.
She snatched it from him, spinning around to study it intensely. Slowly, she began to softly chuckle, the laughter building as she kept her eyes fixed to the page. "I think I just had an idea..."
"Oh, really? Do tell," Rama dryly replied, his long experience at being roped into Nabiki's 'ideas' back in Nerima going unspoken, but hanging in the air.
"First things first, let's get back to the ship," she announced.
"Why?" Ranma asked warily
"Two reasons. Firstly, we don't want anybody else to hear this..."
"And the second reason?"
"It looks like that idiot bounty hunter had friends," Nabiki replied, pointing past Ranma.
Ranma blinked, and then turned around, as did the other martial artists. Sure enough, at least half a dozen other thugs had slunk out of the shadows, though whether they had been the first bounty hunter's partners or were just local idiots who'd heard Ranma shouting about being worth 50 million was anybody's guess.
Ranma sighed and cracked his knuckles. "Fair enough..."
One curbstomp and a quick departure later...
"So, this Sunshine Island isn't far from here?" Nabiki demanded.
"According to these charts, it's maybe two days from here, depending on the wind," Kodachi confidently explained.
"What are you up to this time, Nabiki?" Ranma demanded.
"Why, I would have thought it was obvious... we're going to turn you in!" the eldest girl on the ship explained, grinning hugely at her own cleverness.
"Say what?!" roared three angry girls and one indignant boy. Ryoga was rubbing his chin thoughtfully and so neglected to voice his opinion.
"Don't get so worried! We've been fighting these losers for over a month now; Ranma can break out of any prison these weaklings can put together in his sleep, and even if he can't, you four -" Nabiki cut herself off, glanced at Ryoga, and then amended herself, "you three should be able to rescue him with no problems whatsoever!"
"You're still asking me to stick my head in the hangman's noose!" Ranma snapped back.
"I wouldn't do this if I thought you'd really be in danger," Nabiki assured him, biting back the urge to scowl at the naked skepticism her words elicited, "But just think about it; you get to make the navy look like idiots, and they'll even pay you for the privilege!"
Ranma opened his mouth to shoot Nabiki down, then caught himself. He let out a soft noise of contemplation, even as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Don't do this, Ranchan, it's way too risky! This guy's a 'commodore'? Well, doesn't that mean he's probably some big cheese? If there's tougher guys in this sea, then this Nelson guy will probably have them guarding him," Ukyo cautioned him.
"Shampoo not think you weakling like Ukyo do, airen," Shampoo added, ignoring the indignant "hey!" from her counterpart, "but Shampoo agree; this could go badly..."
"Well, I for one think it sounds like a wonderful idea; just the sort of daring scheme that a brave, bold, fearless, clever pirate captain like my darling Ranma would pull off!" Kodachi gushed, eyes glittering as she visibly drifted off into her own little dreamworld.
"Yeah, Ranma, why don't you try it? I'd do it, if they put a bounty on my head," Ryoga observed flippantly, smirking as he did so.
'...You couldn't be more obvious if you tried, pork-butt... but, damn it all, I'm gonna have to say yes now. My pride's at stake! Stupid old man... why'd you leave me with my pride as the only thing I have going for me?'
Ranma sighed softly, then straightened himself up as authoritatively as he could. "Set sail for Sunshine Island!"
"Aye-aye, captain darling!" Kodachi shot back, saluting Ranma before skipping over to the wheel in her iconic arcing bounds, bouncing around like a human rabbit before landing at her destination.
"That's all well and good, captain... but have you given any thought as to how you'll actually present yourself as a captive?" Umok called down from his perch under the mainsail.
"That's easy; disguises!" Nabiki cheerfully announced, earning a wary glance from the others.
Two days later...
"Sunshine Island dead ahead! Also, consider me officially impressed with the shipwrights of this world!" Umok called down from the crow's nest.
Six curious teens sprang to life at the imp's words and hurried to the Milka's prow for a better look over the waves at their destination. Sunshine Island was a modestly sized island; relatively flat, with some gentle hills that even from this distance were visibly covered with a dense forest. Anchored off the island's shores was the biggest ship that any of them had ever seen, at least since coming to this world.
Ranma whistled tunelessly. "Wow... some ship! It makes your family yacht look like your family rowboat, Kodachi!"
"Incredible...what a behemoth! I swear, that looks like a small castle built onto its center!" Kodachi observed.
"I wonder what the deal is with that other symbol? The one that looks like a cross and five spheres?" Ukyo wondered.
"Probably just a rank thing. That has to be where this 'Commodore Royale' is waiting for us... do you guys think you can take that ship?" Nabiki asked, a hungry glint in her eye.
"We can barely manage this little ship! What would we do with a monster like that?" Ranma pointed out.
"I'm just thinking, there's got to be a lot more than 50 million beries on something that big!" Nabiki pointed out.
"Yeah, and a freakin' army of goons guarding it!" Ryoga jeered in response. "We're good, but even we have our limits!"
Nabiki pouted like a child denied her favorite treat, but the other teens all just nodded their agreement with Ryoga's assessment of the odds. "Okay... fifty million will do, then. Speaking of which, we had better hurry up and start getting disguised! C'mon!"
A quick costume change...
"Tadah! We'll walk right into the belly of the beast and back out again with nobody being any the wiser!" Nabiki gloated.
"I can't believe Kodachi's costume collection is actually coming in handy," Ukyo admitted.
"And why not? I always said we should dress to impress if we're going to be pirates!" Kodachi scoffed, flipping open the fan she was now carrying and delicately waving it in front of her face.
"Dress to impress? We look like a bunch of rejects from a shonen manga!" the crossdressing chef protested incredulously.
"From a shonen manga? Perhaps. Rejects? I think not!" Kodachi sniffed indignantly.
"Of course you'd say that, you got to dress up like a noblewoman," Ukyo snapped back.
And it wasn't exactly an unfair description. Kodachi had evidently plundered the costume wardrobe of that Marine entertainment corp vessel they'd hit three days ago, which had been a bit of an embarrassment for the Neriman crew, all things considered. Precisely why there was an ornamental women's kimono, geta and bladed fans in a costume wardrobe, nobody knew, and had largely chalked it up to the recurring odd mixture of Western and Japanese elements that made up this world.
"Jealousy ill becomes you, Miss Kuonji, especially as I happen to be of samurai descent," Kodachi swiftly rebutted.
"I'm not jealous! I just wanna know why you get to be a noblewoman and I get stuck dressing like an onna banchou!" Ukyo scowled, tugging at the hem of her shirt yet again. She'd been forced back into her old boy's school uniform, except this time she was wearing it open, revealing her naked midriff and sarashi-wrapped bosom to anybody who looked as the front of her coat flapped in the wind. A spare surgical mask, a thin chain used to tie her hair into a braid, heavy black leather boots, and wickedly studded bracers and collar, completed the picture of a rough-and-tumble female punk.
"At least you get to wear something!" An indignant Shampoo pointed out. The Chinese Amazon was bare from the waist up, save for her bra, as well as going barefooted and clad in the most torn, ripped, pair of leggings they had. Thick heavy iron bracelets reminiscent of shackles on her wrists were her only ornament.
"Why are you complaining? You've never had any sense of modesty before," Nabiki quipped. The grinning Tendo girl had dressed up like a pirate queen, with a large tricorn hat - complete with exotic bird's feather, overcoat, thigh-high laceup boots and form-hugging leggings.
"That in front of you, not perfect strangers!"
"Look, ladies, we need disguises! Just because they didn't put bounties on our heads doesn't mean we can just walk into their base pretending to be ourselves. So it's all the better if your costumes aren't things you'd normally dress up as, because it makes them less likely to compare you."
"...I guess that makes sense," Ukyo conceded, Shampoo reluctantly nodding.
"I knew you'd see reason... now, we just need to take care of the boys..."
At this, Ranma and Ryoga both tensed.
"Hey, wait a minute, what do I need a disguise for?" Ranma protested.
"You don't... but if you're supposed to be the prisoner, then we need you to look the part. And Ryoga definitely needs a disguise too... fortunately, he comes with one built in..."
Shortly thereafter...
The commodore's ship was even more impressive up close than it had been when they were looking at it from afar; the prow-dominating oni's face figurehead had to be at least as tall as the Milka, and as wide as the Milka from stem to stern. It towered over the little caravel like an ocean-borne mountain, and as they sailed into the leviathan vessel's shadow, Ranma nervously tugged his wrists, jangling his chains.
"Will you stop fidgeting?!" Nabiki hissed.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be a prisoner, I'm blending in... but didya have to use real chains?!" Ranma shot back.
"You want to sell the con, you have to make it look authentic! Didn't your father ever teach you that?"
"Pops prefered picking pockets or petty burglary."
"Besides, are you telling me that you can't break free of a few spare anchor chains?" Nabiki asked, trying to play on Ranma's pride.
"Of course I can! ...I just can't promise that it'll be quick, it might take me a minute," Ranma muttered.
"Well, that's alright, you don't need to break out right away! Give us time to make it to the ship, snap your chains, punch through the wall, jump back down into the ship, and we'll be out of here before any of them realize what's going on. Maybe even use that Kamehame Ha jet engine trick of yours to be extra sure we get away..."
"S'called the Moko Takabisha," Ranma grumbled sullenly to himself. "But... okay, yeah, that makes sense... I still got one question though."
"Which is?" Nabiki asked, one eyebrow quirked in that way she had which always managed to make Ranma feel a little stupid.
"Why are we bringing P-chan out to play?" the 'captive' pirate captain demanded, a sentiment that the transformed pig echoed with a loid and poignant oink.
"They know our crew as two boys and three girls. If four women and a pig show up dragging you in, then they won't realize we're the same crew," Nabiki patiently explained.
"Still seems kinda risky to take out one of our heavy hitters... place this big is gonna have a lot of guards..." Ranma noted.
"Airen not kidding," Shampoo murmured, glancing up at the floating fortress herself.
"I've got a thermos hidden in my coat; we need Ryoga, he's a splash away from being back to himself. Will you all relax and trust me? I've got it all figured out!" Nabiki assured them.
Before any further arguments could be made about that claim, a voice suddenly boomed from above like a watchful deity. "Unidentified ship, hold fast! State your name and your business!"
Nabiki strutted imperiously to the front of their motley crew and craned her neck to look up towards the deck so high above. At the top of her lungs, she shouted, "I'm Ice Queen Tendo! I have a bounty to claim!"
"If you want to log a bounty, take it to the outpost on Sunshine Island!" came the reply.
"You'll want this bounty in person! It's Ranma Saotome of the DirtyCoward Pirates, and his special treasure, as Commodore Nelson commanded!" Nabiki shot back.
Silence fell as the echoes of her call drifted away. Minutes passed, the teenaged pirates shuffling nervously, before the unseen speaker called down again. "Bring your vessel around to the port side of ours, and wait for the lift! You'll be escorted into the company of Commodore Nelson at once!"
Nabiki flashed a wicked smirk at her companions, not even bothering to speak when they could feel the gloating triumph wafting off of her. Turning back to the commodore's ship, she cried, "We understand! We'll be right there!"
Kodachi quickly steered the ship, and the Milka soon drew up alongside the behemoth - the "Hand of God", according to the massive name emblazoned on its side. They weighed anchor, and watched cautiously as a wooden platform lowered with deceptive sluggishness from the ship's deck so high above. Down and down it descended, until finally it stood level with their own deck, four grim-faced Marines occupying the corners.
Nabiki barely spared them a glance, instead immediately striding forward.
"Step lively, ladies! And you, get moving!" she barked, yanking on the chain she carried that ultimately terminated in a coil wrapped around Ranma's neck.
Ranma jerked forward, and he glared balefully at his quartermaster, before reluctantly falling in behind her, chains jingling musically with each step he took. The other girls fell in behind Ranma, with Ryoga-as-pig trotting obediently along like a pet, a rope leash connecting him to Ukyo's hand.
The Marines watched them coolly as they boarded the lift. They made no attempt to interact with the quintet, with one instead lifting his head to the heavens and gesturing to an unseen counterpart above, starting whatever machinery was in place to hoist the lift back aloft.
Soon enough, the six from Nerima were standing on the ship's deck. Even now, it bustled with a veritable town's worth of Marines, scrambling around like giant white-colored ants as they attended to the myriad tasks involved in running a ship of this size. Standing in anticipation of their arrival was a strange man; a weaselly-looking fellow clad in an immaculately tailored gray suit with purple, which looked quite odd with his rather punk-like sunglasses and tall, curved coif of purple hair, which arched up and over his forehead like a scorpion's tail. Even with his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, they could feel him studying them intensely, his gaze focused on Ranma - and on the small chest with its Devil Fruit cargo that Shampoo was carrying.
"Well, well, it seems you indeed have the goods you claimed... Commodore Nelson is waiting in his chambers. Follow me, if you will?"
Despite his polite phrasing, the Nerimans could tell that this was not a request. Still, they obediently fell in behind him as he began marching off, leading them across the deck and into the castle-like structure that rose from its center. Up into the highest level he led them into a great, shadowy hall lined with purple silk drapery.
"Commodore Nelson, the bounty hunters are here," their guide announced as he led them past twin lines of Marines standing at attention.
"Good work, Eric," boomed a thick, guttural voice.
The Nerimans stood dumbstruck as they finally had their first look at Commodore Nelson. Seated upon a massive throne outfitted with litter-bearer poles, though it would have taken at least half a dozen strong men to carry, which itself occupied a massive circular plinthe at the center of the hall, Nelson nearly spilled out of his chair. The Commodore was massive, there was simply no other word to describe him; even had he been reasonably proportioned, he would have been twice, maybe thrice the height of any man around him. But he was proportioned most unreasonably indeed!
"Fuck me," Ranma breathed in disbelief, staring blatantly at his 'host'. "I didn't think it was possible for a human to get that fat!"
It was the same sentiment that every last one of the Nerimans was thinking.
The word "obese" barely stretched to describe Commodore Nelson Royal. His great hairy belly spilled outward like a massive wall of flesh, a near-spherical mass that stuck out not only to Nelson's front, but to his sides as well, dwarfing his legs so that they merely protruded like seemingly vestigial nubs from somewhere beneath his bulk. His face was similarly distorted, with cheeks so swollen with flab they were each nearly as big against as his skull, their unnatural stature only highlighted by the crimson spiral painstakingly inked upon each bloated jowl.
He was so hugely, monstrously fat that despite wearing a great white jacket that looked as if it could have been a sail for the Milka in a previous life, it was too small to even attempt to close, instead being worn loosely to hang down his bulging sides. He wore no pants, instead lounging about in massive boxer shorts largely hidden beneath his corpulency. The Navy's emblem was tattooed upon his boulder-like gut, and a long golden chain ending in a small ornament dominated by a crimson jewel hung about his neck. Beneath a tall blue stovepipe hat, also adorned with the Navy's emblem, tiny piggy eyes stared hungrily from above a small, upturned nose and above a massive, thick-lipped mouth. His eyebrows had been styled into small black spheres, almost a parody of the hikimayu style, whilst a long, thin, mustache had been patiently stiffened into upward-curling semi-spirals.
The monstrosity masquerading as a man grinned an evil grin and sniggered darkly. "Well-well, Captain Saotome, we meet at last! You've been causing quite a lot of trouble here in the East Blue, I hear?"
"Oh, I've been having a little fun, that's all," Ranma flippantly retorted, shrugging for that added touch of insolence.
"Defiant little heathen, aren't you? Well, I'll deal with you in time. Firstly, where's that treasure you stole from me?!" Nelson demanded, voice rising to a thunderous echo as he did.
"It's right here, Commodore... go on, give it to him, girl!" Nabiki barked at Shampoo, snapping the Chinese Amazon out of her stunned state at the sheer vulgarity she was watching.
Discretely shaking herself back to her senses, Shampoo marched forward to the foot of the plinth. There, she opened the chest she'd been carrying and presented its contents to the bloated Marine official, who leaned forward to see inside..
"Yerghurghurghurgur! You thought you were being so clever, stealing from me, eh? Well, I... what trickery is this?!" the commodore roared like a bull who'd just caught his most sensitive parts in a wire fence.
"What trick?! No trick!?" Shampoo yelped in protest.
"Where's the Devil Fruit I paid a fortune for?!" Nelson demanded, slamming his hands down on the arms of his throne.
"Hey, the Fruit in that chest is exactly the same Devil Fruit that was there when I stole it!" Ranma shouted back.
"I was promised the Rabbit-Rabbit Fruit, Model Type: Moon Rabbit! The Mythical Zoan with the powers of alchemy! This is just the Rabbit-Rabbit Fruit!" Nelson bellowed in a rage. "Those worthless heretics! They'll pay for this!"
"Well, I'm sorry, but that's not my problem!" Nabiki interjected. "Now, if we can just discuss my fifty million, I'll be out of your hair and let you get right on with planning your revenge..."
At her words, Nelson suddenly stopped. He stared at her, and then leered evilly. "Oh. Oh-ho... Is that what you think? Oh, no-no-no... after all, why should I pay when the entire Dirty Pirates Crew has already delivered itself into my clutches? Guards! Seize them!"
"What?!" yelped the five teens from Nerima (Ryoga squealing in fellow sentiment).
The Marines who had been standing at attention suddenly snatched up cutlasses and stood ready to attack, even as other Marines began pouring into the hall from previously concealed doorways like ants reacting to somebody kicking their nest.
"How did you figure us out?!" An appalled Nabiki demanded.
"Yerghurghurghurgur! How stupid did you think I was, girl? Even if we didn't already have descriptions of all of you from your previous victims, and the Navy is very good at rendering suspects in sketch, we already knew that you Dirty Coward Pirates liked to pull stunts like this! And even then, the audacity to sail up to us without even bothering to disguise your ship's name or figurehead and think we wouldn't recognize you! Just how dumb do you think the Navy is?! Face it - you came hoping to trick us, but you simply delivered yourselves up on a silver platter! Yerghurghurghurgur!"
As Nelson's laughter echoed through the cavernous hall, the weight of her failure crashing down upon her head, Nabiki flushed with a mixture of rage and embarrassment. "...Oops."
"Smooth move, Nabiki!" Ranma snarled.
"Why didn't you just handcuff us all first?" Ukyo spat.
"We will have words after this, Tendo!" Kodachi jeered.
"Will you all just shut up and get us out of here?!" Nabiki demanded in response.
As if that was the signal they'd been waiting for, the Marines suddenly surged forward, yelling battlecries in a great chorus that made the hall shake.
Nabiki's eyes bulged wide, and she dropped Ranma's chain as if it were red-hot. "Time to fix this! Ryoga!"
But as her hand darted inside her jacket, their escort struck first.
"Sickle-Sickle Whirlwind!"
With a wave of his hand, a coruscating scythe of wind lashed out, sweeping through the intervening space and striking Nabiki squarely across her torso. She screamed in pain, her clothes tearing and gouts of blood spraying forth, twisting and spiraling as the wind dragged them in its wake.
"Nabiki!" Ranma screamed instinctively, the other Nerimans staring wildly in shock.
"Odd... I wasn't aiming to cut her that deeply," Eric mused.
Nabiki collapsed to the floor, hitting the deck knees first before toppling bonelessly to her side. As she did, the thermos she had been carrying bounced free and rolled across the deck... both halves of it.
"Ah. That explains it; a little blood mixed with a lot of water. Still, for her to fall to such an attack so readily, she must have truly been weak..." the suit-clad man declared.
"You shut up!"
Eric leapt to safety as Ranma suddenly sprang at him, twisting impossibly to the air before delivering a powerful diving kick that cratered the floor - only the need to avoid taking himself out of the fight by breaking through to a lower deck kept Ranma from hitting even harder. Snarling savagely, the heir to the Saotome School of Anything-Goes lashed out at Eric with a kick, which Eric narrowly dodged with a massive backwards leap.
"She doesn't even know how to fight! You leave her alone, you - hey, lemme go!"
In Ranma's moment of distraction, a Marine with more courage than sense had grabbed Ranma's dangling chain and yanked on it as hard as he could. Snarling in fury, Ranma twisted around and kicked the attacker, sending his unconscious body flying through the air like a human missile. But, as if that had been a signal, Marines began dogpiling Ranma, grabbing for his chain and attempting to use it to aid them in getting him on the ground.
Ranma kicked and stomped, hopping around like a berserker flea, but the crush was simply too thick for him to divert the attention he needed to snap his bonds and unleash his full fighting potential. Cursing madly, Ranma was dragged off of his feet and then buried under Marine bodies, creating a pile of humans... which suddenly surged from the floor as Ranma hoisted the entire pile aloft on his feet, and then contemptuously kicked them clean to the other end of the hall before flipping upright.
"You gotta do better than that ta stop me!" he bragged.
"Ranchan!"
"Ranma darling!"
"Airen!"
The panicked cry of his would-be brides made Ranma whirl to face them, and he gawped in momentary disbelief. The Marines were pouring over them like ants on a pair of frogs, literally throwing themselves into the fray in their desperation to overwhelm them all. Kodachi lashed out with her trusty ribbon, only to be grabbed from behind by two huge Marines, each of whom seized an arm and a leg apiece and held her immobile, leaving her unable to do anything but thrash and scream. Ukyo swung her battle spatula as if her life depended on it, only to be taken aback when several Marines literally threw themselves onto it, pinning it under their collective weight and allowing her to be grabbed in similar fashion. Only Shampoo managed to avoid that ignominious fate, bludgeoning one Marine who tried with the chest so hard it shattered into pieces, even as she kicked another one in the crotch and left him a whimpering heap on the deck.
"Hold on girls, I'm - gah! Geddoffame!"
Marines dogpiled Ranma desperately, trying to cling to him by using the chains for leverage. Ranma bucked and thrashed, almost throwing them off... before one Marine suddenly stuck what looked like an egg in the martial artist's face and crushed it, releasing a thick jet of noxious gas right into Ranma's face.
Searing chemical scent poured down Ranma's nostrils and burned his throat, flooding his eyes with tears as he gagged and spluttered. Worse still, he could feel his strength bleeding away as surely as if they'd cut his carotid, his vision swirling and blurring all around him.
"You cheats! Poison gas? I'll! You'll pay! Gonna! Gonna...! Hurt...you..."
With a dismayed groan, Ranma collapsed to the deck. His eyes fluttered as he fought to stay conscious... but it was a battle he couldn't win. With a mournful sigh, he passed out.
"Yerghurghurghurgur! So much for these heathens! But what could you expect of East Blue trash without even the courage to stand behind their own Jolly Roger?" Commodore Nelson boasted.
"You not win yet! Shampoo still fight!" the Chinese Amazon roared back.
The massive mountain of flab carved in crude mockery of a man guffawed heartily, a deep and phlegm-choked rumble from deep down in his sprawling gut. "Foolish mortal! You may be strong, but my men will gladly give their lives - you will be overwhelmed! Now be a good girl and surrender my Devil Fruit! It may only be a trinket compared to the true treasure I sought, but it will sweeten the pot when I take you all to the Holy City of Mariejois!"
Shampoo snarled defiantly, eyes darting back and forth as she scanned for a way to escape, but even she had to admit that it seemed hopeless. Dozens of marines, each and every one bearing an expression of grim resignation, stood arrayed on all sides. She was good... but she wasn't that good. Instinctively, she clutched the Devil Fruit she had unthinkingly clung to throughout the brawl in her hands... which was when a thought struck her. After all, a Joketsuzoku never went down without a fight!
"You may catch Shampoo... but say goodbye to this cursed fruit!"
"You wouldn't dare!" Commodore Nelson Royal roared, pasty cheeks momentarily blotching red with a mixture of rage and exertion.
Shampoo responded by lifting the jade-green, swirl-covered peach to her mouth and taking a massive bite... only to freeze in place as the taste assaulted her tongue. It tasted like something dead; the bitter-sweetness of pustulant rot mixed with a cloying sourness that coated her tongue and clung to her teeth, accentuating the greasy texture of the fruit's flesh. Her stomach roiled and she almost spat the vile-tasting morsel on the floor... but sheer stubborn pride fueled by rage allowed her to swallow disgust and fruit alike. Shampoo crammed the Devil Fruit into her mouth as hard and fast as she could, barely chewing in her haste to get the unspeakably foul thing down her gullet. Finally, with a titanic swallow, she forced the Devil Fruit down her throat with an audible gluck-gulp, the entire fruit vanished into her guts.
The Chinese Amazon hung her head, panting for breath; that had been a harder fight than anything Mousse had given her in years! Her belly heaved and churned, battling against the noxious fruit she had forced upon her innocent flesh, and she fought to keep from throwing it right back up again.
'This is supposed to be the magical Devil Fruit?! Have I been tricked into eating poison?!'
Commodore Nelson's scream of outrage rolled through the sprawling hall, echoing from its cavernous walls. "Uuwwaaaaaugh! Seize her! Take her! Seize her! Take her!"
The marines descended on Shampoo in a tidal wave of white-clad bodies. Despite her nauseated state, Shampoo did her best to resist, lashing out with furious blows, but there were just too many of them and she found herself dragged down through sheer weight of numbers, crushed to the floor and then bound with her wrists behind her back. They dragged her along the floor, only hoisting her to her feet when she was at the metaphorical and literal foot of the dais where the Commodore's bloated bulk sprawled in his throne. Shampoo glared up at the swollen tyrant, whose piggy eyes returned the glare, thick lips curled into a sneer as he fanned himself with an ornate paper fan.
"You wretched little peasant! Have you anything to say before I sentence you?"
Shampoo took a deep breath and wracked her brains for something pithy to fire back at this human obscenity, only for her abused stomach to intercede with only a single gurgle of warning.
"Bwooouuurrrp!" SPLAT!
The room went deathly still. Utter silence reigned, so intense that the sounds of the slimy peach pit slowly oozing down Commodore Royal's hairy stomach before dropping to the floor with a rattle of wood on wood echoed in their collective ears. The marines were all pale as sheets, sweat rolling off of them in thick rivers as they schooled their expressions to be as blank as sea-washed stones. Shampoo fought off her embarrassed blush, instead watching as Commodore Royal's massive, wax-pale face went red and black with fury, hate almost palpably pouring off of the bloated official.
"Throw her in the dungeon with the others! Execute them all at dawn!" Commodore Royal screamed, rage rendering his voice into a high-pitched, almost womanly whine far at odds with his hulking frame.
The marines ran for the door as fast as their legs could carry them, dragging Shampoo with them like a dishrag. As she was carried away, the Chinese Amazon could only think one thought...
'...At least I didn't vomit on him. They wouldn't have taken that for defiance...'
Chapter End & Closing Notes
I'm sorry for the length of these chapters, but my computer is literally dying of old age and I don't have the funds to fix it, so I figure a relatively short chapter I can get out more quickly whilst working around its frequent bouts of inoperability is preferable to going incredibly long times between updates.
So... we have ourselves a cliffhanger, and our first official Devil Fruit in Shampoo's new Zoan fruit; the Rabbit-Rabbit! How does a Zoan Devil Fruit interact with Jusenkyo? Well, you'll get to see that in the next chapter...
As for Commodore Nelson's appearance... well, I'll admit; I do plan to shamelessly steal as many anime filler arcs and movies for Ranma & co's adventures as I can, but even then, I may just rework those characters to suit my own needs. Suffice it to say that Luffy & co are off having their canon adventures, but Ranma & co won't be interfering with their journey.