A/N: Hope that you're all doing well, and that you enjoy this chapter!
(Also I apologise, I accidentally uploaded the next chapter instead of this one and then deleted it as soon as I could. That chapter will be out hopefully by the end of next week, depending on edits.)
Sabo was finding Ulpia to be very good company, quiet and generally stoic, but a very good traveling companion nonetheless. The small talk that the two had engaged in had provided him with enough answers to realise that she had often travelled around by herself in her own world, but very rarely via boat or ship, walking mostly and very rarely by horse.
"Though, I don't think I've ever actually owned the horses I've ridden. It's happens to be so much easier to just steal them from the stables outside of Whiterun."
Sabo couldn't help but laugh, "Reminds me a bit of when my brothers and I would be all polite at restaurants, thank them for the meals and just take off on foot. I don't recall us ever getting caught? Or if we did, it certainly wasn't for long."
Ulpia this time was the one to laugh, "I've done a lot of things, but I don't think I've ever dined and dashed before. I think that's one crime I've never committed."
"The one crime?"
She nodded, "I used to put buckets on shopkeepers heads and somehow they never really noticed it, nor did they notice when I stole everything that wasn't nailed down."
Sabo looked at her incredulously, "How? I mean, surely they would have noticed you putting a bucket on their heads?"
Ulpia looked down, grinning. "That's what you would think, but no. Not a single shopkeep ever noticed me teleporting buckets over their heads, ever. Right in front of the guards at times, too."
Sabo shook his head, whatever world Ulpia had come from was apparently a strange one if the people weren't even slightly aware of what was going on around them.
"Was it peaceful, your world?"
It was definitely a stupid question, but one that he really couldn't stop himself from asking.
"By Akatosh, definitely not. Skyrim had just finished a civil war, and another war with the Thalmor was looming when I found myself here. Nothing in Tamriel ever stays peaceful for long."
Sabo took that information in, "Like here peaceful, or?"
"Here the peace is intimate, there's areas of strife but on the surface here people are happy and at peace. At home? Conflict is breathed in and blood is spat back out, nothing is untouched by violence and even the children are able to call on the Dark Brotherhood and forever in-debt themselves to the God of Schemes and Daedric Prince of domination and slavery by a simple metric of accidental worship."
Sabo went white, none of that sounded any good. A deity specifically for slavery and domination? And one could be in debt to them?
He must have been silent for far too long, because Ulpia smiled sadly at him, patting him on the shoulder.
"It's not all bad there, just like its not all bad here. We both just happen to see the worst in humanity, in people because we've been hurt by a world that doesn't care about the people most vulnerable and we can only do so much within our own power without burning out entirely."
Nami began to read the note aloud, "'I know I promised to try and stay, but I cannot and will not risk you all. People who have been so kind to me, knowing enough of my past that you do. But if they come for me, and threaten you, I will leave. Do not put yourself at more risk by coming after me. Good bye, and thank you for making these last weeks worth living.'"
"Does she really think that we'll leave her behind after everything we know?"
Sighing, I nodded at Chopper. "She does, it's going to have to take something extreme for her to actually believe that we care about her, and that she herself deserves to live."
"So we do what they did in can."
It still sounded a bit silly calling it can but we hadn't as to yet come up with a better word to use, and besides, we didn't actually have the time either.
Sanji, lighting up a cigarette spoke, agitated at the very thought of leaving Robin behind to whatever fate the World Government had in store for her.
Luffy was resolute, "Captain's orders. We find Robin, convince her that we want her on the crew and that her life is worth something. We fight the world if we have to."
"Right!"
A scream interrupted our very serious conversation, as someone shouted from the crowd that had begun to gather outside, "That's her! That's the one that shot the mayor!"
And they were pointing directly at me.
I hated being accused of doing something that I had absolutely nothing to do with, but even I hadn't expected of being accused of attempted murder.
"I'm sorry, but does it look like I use a gun? You can search me if you like, but I will never, and I mean never use a gun."
I would have said I was being questioned, but it was more like an interrogation than anything else.
Apparently someone matching my description had attempted to murder Iceburg overnight, but it was simple enough. I could definitely provide an alibi, one that the would-be-assassins probably wouldn't have thought of.
"You were seen leaving the scene of the crime, alongside Nico Robin. It is clear that the news of your ship being unable to be fixed has done some damage, and you've attempted to take it out on the person delivering the news."
They were red faced, and panting. I was calm, and collected, and honestly trying really hard not to laugh.
"Look, I can prove that I wasn't the one to shoot your Mayor. Besides, we already knew that the Going Merry wouldn't be able to make it any further, we're not that stupid nor are we that cruel."
The person in front of me, ignoring the comment about Merry even though they had been the one to bring it up, sneered at me. "Prove it."
I smiled, showing more teeth than I would normally, "Ask Lita from the shoe shop on High Street, I'm sure there's enough footage down there to prove that I wasn't anywhere near Iceburg when he was shot."
My interrogator went white, absolutely not realising that I could in fact be innocent of the crime that I was being accused of.
"That's not good enough!"
Rolling my eyes, I began to turn away, "Ask the shopkeeper then. I'm sure she'll vouch for me."
The interrogator reached out to stop me, intent on not letting me leave, but Zoro got in the way by standing right in front of me, hands already resting on his katana.
"Go off, check before you do anything stupid."
Franky couldn't believe his eyes.
He had left for not even a full day, and the entire Franky House had been trashed beyond almost recognition. And the members of his family? They were in various shades of purple and blue, with how beat up they were.
Franky knew that logically there was only one explanation for this, and that happened to be the Straw Hat Pirates, but something that one of the smarter members of the family had told him made him pause.
"Boss! The ship! The Going Merry! She said that she wants a word, but I can't think of what she would want to talk about with you! Pirate Hunter and Crow Queen just stood there as she took us all out! She's crazy!"
What could make a Klabautermann visible to so many people, and to want to talk with someone like him?
Tom had once told him and Ice-for-brains stories about ships with their own personalities, who took after both captain and crew and that he had built one such ship that would live on in infamy and had just as big a hunger and thirst for adventure as her captain did.
(He had always wondered what had happened to the Oro Jackson after the death of her Captain and the disbandment of her crew. Wherever she was, Franky hoped that she was happy and at peace.)
"Boss! You've got to go and avenge us!"
He planned to do so, yes. But he was also incredibly curious as to what the Going Merry wanted from him, maybe curious enough to not want to fight.
Sabo almost couldn't believe their luck.
He was a fairly decent navigator, but even just stumbling across the Moby Dick out of nowhere seemed like it was a bit of a fluke. Though the size of the ship wouldn't make you think it could be stealthy, it certainly was.
Making a decision, he shouted up at the massive ship.
"May we come aboard?"
Momentary silence, before a voice replied.
"Depends! Whose asking?"
The voice wasn't coming from the ship, but from behind himself and Ulpia. Ulpia, who had been very startled that she had fist fulls of lightning before he had even the chance to reply.
Marco the Phoenix was floating there, body language suggesting wariness. And considering everything that had happened with Blackbeard, Sabo wasn't at all surprised.
"My name is Sabo, I think you may have heard of me?"
The wariness left the phoenix's shoulders, as he begun to smile. Though it dropped a little when he didn't see Ace on board. Marco turned to Ulpia, taking in her appearance before he sighed and shook his head, a single question on his mind.
"I assume you're not Ebony then?"
Sabo and Ulpia burst out laughing, and it took a moment before either of them could talk.
One the laughter had settled, she spoke, accent heavy. "No, I'm not. But I am a friend."
"Well, a friend of Ace's is ours too. Come aboard."
It didn't take too long for the pair of them to tie their little ship to the Moby and to climb the ladder than had been thrown to them.
Sabo had thought he had known what to expect, but what seemed to be the entirety of the Whitebeard crew staring at him as he climbed about in complete and utter silence wasn't that.
All he could chalk up to was that they were curious to see what the middle brother of their very own Portgas D. Ace was like.
Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate was sitting on the deck, in the very centre, keeping a watchful eye on the two as they walked in silence. Although it didn't take long for Ulpia and Sabo to make it to the middle, it felt like an eternity due to the stares and concurrent whispering.
When he was standing in front of his brothers Captain, he took of his head and bowed. "Thank you for letting us onboard, honestly we weren't expecting to come across you this early into the New World."
It felt a little strange, but he was sure that the crew wasn't entirely sure what to think of him. Though, he supposed that it must be strange to have one brother be directly polite and the other to go on a multiple day attempted murder streak may give a person a little whiplash. The thought of this crew meeting Luffy almost made him laugh, he was the one brother that really wouldn't give a single shit about Whitebeard's reputation or status as one of the Four Emperors, only if he was treating his brother right. Sabo felt a little of that there.
Whitebeard gave a low laugh, "No need to bow to me! Any brother of a child of mine is more than welcome!"
Ulpia was far more cautious, looking around at the men and women who still hadn't stopped gossiping. Sabo could tell that she felt a bit out of her depth, so he introduced the pair of them to the Pirate Emperor.
"You probably already know, but I'm Sabo and this is Ulpia."
Ulpia spoke up, accent even deeper than it had been earlier, "Ulpia Rilulus, Speaker of the Dark Brotherhood, Defeater of the World Eater and keeper of Alduin, Dovahkiin, Outlier."
Sabo face palmed, he knew that the woman wasn't ever going to hide her status, but he wasn't expecting her to just outright, but the man in front of them didn't seem to be shocked.
Unless she had said it so casually for a reason? A way to check to see if Edward Newgate could be trusted fully?
"Well met, Ulpia. Welcome aboard the Moby Dick."
Apparently the ones that had accused Ebony of attempted murder had run back to the crew, and to a waiting Iceburg and Paulie with the tails between their legs.
The footage that they had been able to watch, as well as to talk to any of the witnesses that had been on the street the previous night were able to corroborate Ebony and Usopp's story. Ebony couldn't have committed the crime, though that unfortunately didn't really get the rest of the crew (apart from Usopp) off the hook.
Robin had still been seen within the group, but very few amongst the crowd wanted to point out that she had apparently looked absolutely terrified and hadn't actually been involved in the shooting itself, having (apparently) appeared afterwards.
Iceburg and Paulie wanted to have a word with Ebony still, but Luffy had full confidence that with Zoro there she had absolutely nothing to worry about.
The conversation that they were having allowed for the rest of the crew to sneak away, with Luffy and Usopp heading towards the Going Merry and Nami, Sanji and Chopper sneaking away to see if they could find any signs of Robin with Melkor leading the way.
It didn't take long for Luffy and Usopp to make it back to the Merry, but they weren't expecting for a particular man to be there, and waiting, with a small yellow cloaked figure staring him down.
But the moment the boss of the Franky Family saw Luffy, he immediately went on the offensive.
"Usopp! Go to Merry!"
Usopp nodded amidst the chaos, sneaking easily onboard
Luffy shouldn't have been surprised, nothing was going according to any plan.
Franky had apparently come to talk to Merry, but had been so overcome with anger and frustration that he attacked without question. Then members of Galley-La began, and they weren't fighting with Luffy.
Whatever had happened, the Straw Hats had gotten the blame once again and people were highly unlikely to talk and ask questions first, preferring the fight first and ask never scenario. And yes, it was ironic that Luffy was the one questioning that methodology, but at times it was the only way for him to get anywhere in life.
"THOUGHT YOU WERE HERE TO TALK TO MERRY!"
Franky didn't answer, firing another blast directly at the rubber man, before he attempted to take off, the many foreman of Galley-La becoming a greater force than what either man had expected.
It didn't work, as he was becoming gradually overwhelmed by the foremen.
Luffy did not like running away from a fight, but sometimes it was for the best. And Usopp would definitely be safe with Merry, they would protect each other.
Amongst the confusion, he quietly took his leave and went back to see if he could find any of the others.
"I'm really sorry, mayor, but it couldn't have been me. My late night shopping attests to that, and I categorically refuse to ever use a gun if I can help. I've already offered to be searched, I've got nothing to hide."
I mean, I did, but Merry had everything that was physically incriminating and so long as I didn't bleed in front of them or they didn't look too long into my eyes then they wouldn't find a damn thing.
Iceburg sighed, running a hand down his face wincing as he did so, the movement straining his injury. "I know it wasn't you, the woman who shot me somehow changed shape and I would't be able to tell you if it was a devil fruit or not. Still a bit strange that someone's attempting to frame you specifically though."
"I'm the only blonde on the crew that has a bounty, and we're relatively new to the whole scene. If you didn't know us, you couldn't really tell what we're actually like. It wouldn't be too difficult to frame a person like that." I replied, shrugging.
It was a little weird, and that shapeshifter had never appeared before that I could remember.
Would the World Government really break their own laws just to train an Outlier to do their bidding? Who am I kidding? Of course they would, and if things went wrong they could very easily and very simply blame anything that went wrong on the fact that an Outlier was involved.
So damn smart, it made me feel ill.
"The only thing that they didn't get right was your voice," Iceburg continued, "The accent they used wasn't right."
And speaking almost at a whisper, "Nico Robin went with them, but with how you all interacted yesterday, I don't think it was willingly."
Zoro chimed in for the first time, "We don't think she went willingly either, and knowing our captain it won't be long before we get her back either."
Iceburg and Paulie paled, with Paulie's voice turning to a whisper, cigarette dropping to the ground.
"You mean to say that your captain is willing to wage war on the world for just one crew member?"
The whisper was more of a screech towards the end, causing some of the sulking public to turn in our direction.
"If your family was threatened, wouldn't you do the same? I mean, you would have done so if I had been the guilty party here."
Usopp couldn't believe it.
How on earth did both he and the Going Merry manage to get kidnapped?
Merry, who was sitting in the corner of the kitchen sulking refused to say a word until Franky came on board and apologised for taking her from Dock One where she had actually gotten comfortable.
"Merry, he'll come on board soon. You can shout at him then."
She turned to him, eyes watering.
"But I had this whole plan! I was going to beat up his goons, send one back to him stammering and blubbering the entire way after getting beat up by a teeny, tiny little girl and getting intimidated by that when the other two members of the crew that were there had the bounties and just let me do my thing. Then I was going to threaten Franky."
Usopp sighed, "Threaten him with what?"
She shrugged, before turning away.
Neither had noticed that the cyborg had come on board by that point and had heard every word that the both of them had said.
Franky decided to make his presence known, "What were you going to threaten me with. I thought that you just wanted to talk?"
It gave Franky great pleasure to see at least one of them jump, but knowing the other was a Klabautermann and knew everything that had and word ever happen onboard her floors made it ever the sweeter.
A/N: So Ulpia could have for sure just listed off a bunch of her titles, but she didn't want to come across as pretentious, so she just used the ones most important to her. Which, totally fair, but one day you'll all get the whole list and it'll make Dany's seem short (maybe? hopefully? I mean you can do a lot of shit in Skyrim, so who knows?).
University is heating up just before Christmas break, so I'm trying to get some things pre-written so I can just post them consistently at the backend of the year. I've got two more planned after this, and maybe a third if I can swing it.
Stay safe and hydrate!