"Hey, have any of you ever heard of the Trump Pirates?" Luffy asked after they kicked Arlong's ass.
Nami and Zoro confirmed that they had heard of them and shared what details they knew. Supposedly a very tough crew that hung around somewhere between Loguetown and Reverse Mountain.
"Let's try to stay out of their way." Luffy said with a frown, disliking the words even as he said them.
The future Pirate King should not be avoiding anyone, but he just didn't have time to play around with a bunch of small fry.
"Oi, Luffy, are you okay?" Usopp asked seriously. "You've insisted on sticking your nose into everything so far."
Yes, he'd done that because his crew needed the experience, or because it was important to them, not because he had any particular desire to keep repeating the same adventures over and over. Frankly, if it wasn't for them he would have just skipped right over to the Grand Line.
"They're just not worth it." He said blandly. Why bother fighting a bunch of weaklings that thought you could become Pirate King by playing around in the weakest sea?
XXXXX
Alas, despite his intentions, it didn't go that way.
Once again, they were waylaid by the Trump Pirate armada on their way to Reverse Mountain. And once again, the Going Merry sustained crippling damage during the battle because of all the bombs they used.
On the next run, they charted a more circuitous route towards Reverse Mountain, only to once again be intercepted with the same results.
By the third run and the third route, Luffy was getting suspicious. Why were they running into this stupid pirate armada no matter where they went? He brought it up to his crew, and that was when Zoro spoke the fatal words.
"Maybe it's fate?" The swordsman shrugged, not thinking much of his words. While he did believe in fate, he also believed in challenging it.
But to Luffy it meant something else entirely. He valued freedom more than anything. Freedom to live his life on his own terms and to make his own choices. This time loop business already grated on him because he couldn't continue his adventure, but the fact that he had died, that the adventure had ended, made it tolerable. Getting out of the time loop with all of his nakama alive was a whole new adventure. All the frustration would be worth it in the end.
However, being forced to have an adventure? Being pushed to deal with the Trump Pirates and whatever they were doing? That was unacceptable.
Outraged at having something as petty as 'fate' decide his course for him, Luffy became determined to defy it out of sheer spite.
XXXXX
Luffy's first idea to stick it to fate was a bit out of character, but he really wanted to get on with his proper adventure already.
After beating up the jerk with the steel jaw, whose name got less and less important with every reset, he demanded that the next highest ranking marine call up the Loguetown headquarters.
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"Hey, this is Monkey D. Luffy, future Pirate King." Luffy responded, ignoring the facepalms from Zoro, Coby, and the marines. "You've got the Trump Pirates right next to you. Why don't you go beat them up?"
There was a long moment of silence, followed by the click of someone hanging up.
Luffy put down the den den mushi's talky thing and looked at everyone with confusion.
"Why did he hang up?"
XXXXX
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"Hey, this is Monkey D. Luffy, future Pirate King and this is not a prank call." Luffy responded, once again ignoring the facepalms from Zoro, Coby, and the marines. "You've got the Trump Pirates right next to you. Why don't you go beat them up?"
There was a long moment of silence, followed by the click of someone hanging up.
"Damn it, I told him it wasn't a prank call!" Luffy shouted angrily.
Zoro, Coby, and the marines facepalmed again.
XXXXX
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"This is Monkey D. Luffy, a hero." Luffy figured it was worth a try. "I'm going to beat up every pirate in the East Blue."
"That's nice for you." Smoker interjected in an incredibly disinterested tone and hung up before Luffy could even say his full piece.
"Damn it!" Luffy yelled.
XXXXX
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"This is Monkey D. Luffy, a hero, and this is not a prank call." Luffy figured it was worth a try. "You have pirates on your doorstep."
"Really?" Smoker didn't sound like he believed it.
"Yeah, the Trump Pirates, led by some guy calling himself the Bear King!"
"Not my jurisdiction."
XXXXX
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"This is Monkey D. Luffy, and I know all." Luffy proclaimed dramatically. "And right now I know that you should get off your ass and beat up the Trump Pirates."
Smoker hung up with a disgusted exhale of smoke.
XXXXX
"This is Captain Smoker. What is it?" A brusque voice answered.
"This is Monkey D. Luffy, and I bet I can beat up more pirates than you!" Luffy challenged.
After consulting his crew, he had been informed that Smoker probably had orders to stay in Loguetown, and that his pursuit of the Straw Hats had probably been in violation of those orders.
Nami had suggested that pricking the man's pride might work.
Alas, None of them realized that Smoker was driven less by pride and more by fear of what Luffy might become after hearing him proclaim that he would be Pirate King. Luffy also hadn't realized that Smoker didn't always chase him, nor did he correlate when it did happen with his own antics in Loguetown. They were working with incomplete information.
Smoker's response was to hang up again.
XXXXX
"Why not just go along with it?" Nami asked in exasperation after all her suggestions to deal with the issue were shot down. "Even if you reset again, you'll at least know more about the situation."
"Because I don't wanna." Luffy said petulantly.
Belying his childish response was the will of a man determined to live life on his own terms.
"How many times have you looped back already?" The navigator asked.
"I didn't count." Luffy shrugged.
"A lot of times, then." She nodded firmly to herself. "You can't have spent all those loops just beating your head against the wall."
Recalling Robin's words that he probably could eventually defeat the time loops that way, but that it would drive him crazy, Luffy nodded reluctantly. "No, I tried to be… clever."
Nami ignored how he said the word as if it tasted sour. "Well then, be clever again. I know it makes you angry to feel like you're being forced to do this, but sometimes you have to put up with it to reach your goals."
She was obviously referring to her own situation with Arlong, which at this point had not yet been resolved.
Luffy sulked and did not reply, thinking of how he could skip the annoying adventure that seemed to be blocking his way.
XXXXX
Weeks later, the Straw Hats were once again sailing out of Loguetown when they spotted the resort island.
Having not come up with any ideas to get past the Trump Pirate armada without the Going Merry suffering critical damage, Luffy allowed them to weigh anchor just off the coast and take a break.
Every moment they spent here grated on him, knowing that it meant they would likely be too late to save Laboon or Vivi. Luffy was not normally a man to keep to a schedule or bother himself with keeping time, but these time loops had forced that consideration on him.
It grated on him even more that it felt like there was no way out of it. Either the Merry got damaged in their attempts to break past the Trump pirates or they would waste too much time with them.
His crew had no such worries weighing down their minds and just enjoyed the beach. Zoro did push ups, Usopp went to get a volley ball, and Nami accepted Sanji's offer to apply sun tan lotion to her back.
Luffy was so busy glaring at the horizon that it did not immediately register on his mind that he was seeing their ship sailing away into the distance. In fact, it didn't register at all. It was only when Usopp came back with the ball that anyone realized their ship was sailing away without them.
"Oi, someone stole the Going Merry!" He yelled.
"Eh?!" Luffy woke up from his sulk, eyes bulging in shock. "STOLEN?!"
"YOU WERE LOOKING RIGHT AT IT!" Zoro, Nami, and Sanji roared at him.
Had this been his first run, Luffy would not have had sufficient mastery of his Devil Fruit to do more than try stretching out his hand and failing to reach the ship. But now his Gum Gum Rocket, honed through many catapults – much to the suffering of his crew – had excellent precision.
Besides, even if he missed, the worst that would happen is another reset, which would happen if they lost their ship anyway.
So Luffy planted his hands on the rock he'd been sitting on, backed up to get some distance, and launched himself at their ship. Like an angry rubber missile, he hit the sail and slid down to the deck.
"Don't steal my ship!" He roared, clobbering the guy behind the wheel.
"Borodo!" A little kid yelled, jumping at Luffy aggressively, only to get pushed to the deck and stepped on to keep him in place.
"Akisu!" The newly named Borodo asked, holding a hand to his aching head. "Wait, please! I'm sorry for trying to steal your ship. Don't hurt my brother!"
"Brother?" Luffy repeated, looking down at the angry boy wriggling under his foot.
XXXXX
After being forced to turn back and pick up the rest of the Straw Hats, Borodo was forced to explain himself.
His intention had been to frame the Trump Pirates for the theft and get the Straw Hats to fight them.
"They're basing themselves on Clockwork Island. You were supposed to be a distraction while we stole the Diamond Clock." He finished his explanation.
"The famous Diamond Clock?!" Nami exclaimed greedily. "The finest jewel and the greatest artifact ever crafted?! The most valuable clock in the world."
"That's our knowledgeable Nami-san!" Sanji simped.
"Ah, so if someone was able to steal it, he really would be the world's greatest thief." Usopp pontificated.
"Are clocks really that valuable?" Luffy wondered to himself. This was the first time he was hearing about clocks being good for anything except telling time.
"Luffy, we need to get that clock!" Nami insisted.
"Hey, Borodo is the one who's going to steal the Diamond Clock!" Akisu snapped.
"He couldn't even steal our ship." Nami mocked him, pulling down her eyelid and sticking out her tongue. "The Diamond Clock will be mine!"
When the two of them devolved into bickering insults, Luffy and Zoro noticed that Borodo didn't seem particularly upset by the notion. If anything, he looked relieved.
"Listen, I've studied the movements of the Trump Pirates patrols and can sail you past them to Clockwork Island. What say we go there together and see who can steal the Diamond Clock first?" Borodo suggested.
"Deal!" Nami instantly agreed, certain that it was as good as hers.
Luffy said nothing, merely staring at Borodo.
XXXXX
As it would happen, Borodo really did manage to sail them past the Trump Pirates and to Clockwork island. They anchored the Going Merry a good distance away and then approached with a smaller and much stealthier raft.
Luffy, despite his annoyance at being forced on this adventure, thought that the ridiculous giant spiral pillar holding up Clockwork island was pretty cool.
"Do they walk up and down those stairs every time they want to sail somewhere?" Usopp asked incredulously.
"No, there's an elevator shaft running through the central pillar." Borodo explained as they hit the sand. "The stairs are full of deadly traps, so we'll need to wait for the Trump Siblings to bring down the elevator for us."
"That's boring." Luffy declared, already going up the stairs. His crew followed behind him.
"Oi, I told you already that the stairs are full of deadly traps!" Borodo yelled. "Do you wanna die?!"
"Yeah, do you wanna die?!" Akisu parroted indignantly.
"I'm not waiting." Luffy explained.
The other Straw Hats, well used to how their captain operated by now, followed without a word. None of them bothered pointing out that waiting to hijack the elevator would probably be faster.
As Borodo had warned, the staircase was indeed full of traps. Spikes, boulders, water, and more. In a different timeline, they would have had to deal with all of that without their gear, which would make things quite problematic. As it was, they had only mild difficulty overcoming the obstacles. The sheer length of the climb was the worst obstacle of all, really.
But they did eventually make it up to Clockwork Island high in the sky, and the first thing they did was… wander around town grabbing food and looking at the various clockwork devices.
Luffy and Usopp were inevitably drawn to what appeared to be a toy store of some sort, pulling the rest of the crew along.
"Oh, visitors? It's been a long time since we had visitors." A man and woman with crazy hair and lab coats said placidly, sipping coffee.
"We're here to kick Bear King's ass and take the Diamond Clock." Luffy said unenthusiastically, still annoyed at being forced to have this adventure. If it was his choice it would be one thing, but now he just wanted to get it over with.
"If you can do that, we would be most grateful." The woman said without any real energy.
"Eh? You don't care if we take the Diamond Clock?" Nami asked, confused. People were normally upset when they were stolen from.
"We made that clock to commemorate the birth of our child, but then the Trump Siblings came and occupied our island. We sent him away so that he could live free of their tyranny. Now the Diamond Clock is nothing but a reminder of what we lost." They explained sadly.
"That's cruel." Akisu mumbled.
Borodo had a very different reaction, though. His was the face of a man that had just realized something.
And Zoro had been paying attention. The thief had already admitted to wanting to set them against the Trump Pirates when they first met, and he had proved unusually well informed about their operations. Frankly, he had thought that the man was an agent of the Trump Pirates, but now he had a different idea.
"Oi." The swordsman said, getting everyone's attention. "Didn't you say you picked up Akisu in a basket floating on the ocean, with a clockwork music box in with him?"
Akisu had played with his little music box on the trip to Clockwork island, leading to an explanation of its origins.
"How is sending an infant to drift randomly across the sea a good idea?" Usopp muttered to himself, wondering at this parenting strategy.
"You're… my parents?" Akisu asked in shock, bringing out his music box.
The man and woman stood up and approached, tears already forming in their eyes. "That's the music box we left with our son. You survived, thank heavens."
"So I was right." Borodo said, shoulders slumping slightly in relief as he turned to his little brother. "Akisu, I've long suspected that Clockwork Island was your home. My claims of wanting to steal the Diamond Clock were a lie, I just wanted to defeat the Trump Pirates so that you could return."
"What are you talking about?! My home is with you, Borodo!" Akisu yelled.
"Then it's settled." Nami said firmly. "We'll go beat up the Trump Pirates, you two can settle down here, and I get the Diamond clock."
"We would be happy to have you." The engineer woman quickly said, more than willing to accept the grown man that had taken in her son as family.
"That's right." Her husband agreed.
"I...err…" Borodo stumbled, having not expected this. When he had hatched this plan to return Akisu to his home, he had imagined that he would go back out to sea while his adopted little brother stayed behind with his blood family. It had never occurred to him that he might be invited to stay as well. "I appreciate the offer, but I am a man of the sea."
"So am I!" Akisu declared, not willing to be separated from his brother.
"You can still consider Clockwork Island your home." The woman offered again, unwilling to let go of her son quite that easily. "Even men of the sea need to come ashore once in a while, don't they?"
That was a much harder offer to refuse, and even mentioning that they were thieves didn't deter the desperate parents.
Luffy, meanwhile, had somewhat lost interest in the family reunion. Normally, he might have tested Akisu's resolve, as he disliked helping cowards and weaklings, but he really just wanted to get this side adventure over with.
"Hey, is that where Bear King is?" He asked, pointing at the weird, spiraling, card-themed castle at the center of the island. "Do we have to walk up another staircase to get there?"
"No, we'll have to take an alternative way up." Borodo said, relieved to extract himself from the conversation about being adopted into Akisu's blood family. "The ground around the castle is filled with landmines."
XXXXX
The alternative was a basket suspended on a long wire leading up to the castle, dragged along by a parachute and Borodo's skill at catching the wind. The basket was more a little cramped with seven of them squeezed into it. Akisu had insisted on coming along, despite the entreaties of his rediscovered parents. Borodo had looked like he wanted to suggest that he stay behind as well, but apparently didn't want to insult his resolve.
Luffy could certainly respect that.
"Oh my, you're still alive?" A familiar female voice said poutily as a light purple liquid poured out of a nearby faucet.
"It's the sexy lady!" Sanji simped, almost falling out of the basket.
"Oi, get a grip." Usopp complained as he grabbed him by the waist.
"Eh, a Logia?" Luffy tilted his head, having not expected to see one of those outside the Grand Line again.
"That's right, the Fluid Fluid Fruit, to be precise." Honey Queen bragged. "Boo Jack, reward them."
"Yes, reward me!" Sanji slobbered, not quite registering that it wouldn't be Honey Queen doing the rewarding.
Zoro, having his swords in hand, easily deflected the tricky spiked ball Boo Jack threw at them. "Love Cook."
Those two words, combined with the realization that he'd almost been 'rewarded' by a spherical fat man, were enough to snap Sanji out of his love mode. "Oi, Marino, you trying to pick a fight?!"
"You turned down your reward?" Honey Queen pouted, jumping up from the wires she'd been balancing on so that she was level with the basket. Her tone turned menacing. "You shouldn't have!"
Luffy, by now a veteran of many strange battles, saw what was coming. While he didn't know if the light purple stuff making up Honey Queen's body was poisonous or not, he knew that he couldn't let it get to his crew. Lacking a means of dealing with a Logia, there was only one thing he could do.
Jumping forward and opening his maw wide, the rubber man chomped on the blonde woman.
"Oi, Luffy, that's not how you eat a woman!" Sanji roared in outrage.
Zoro facepalmed, while the others just blushed at the implications.
Nami, face red, brought the hammer of her fist down on their cook's head. "There is a child present!"
But the damage was done. Akisu looked around in confusion. "There's a proper way to eat a woman?"
"… I'll explain when you're older." Borodo dodged.
Luffy didn't have time to reply to Sanji's criticism, although he too was wondering the same thing as Akisu. Having jumped out of the basket, he now had no choice but to stretch his arms and Tarzan his way the remaining distance to the castle.
Inside him, he felt Honey Queen panicking and using her Devil Fruit power to try escaping. Since everything about him was rubber, including his sinuses, this succeeded. The fluid woman forcibly ejected herself from his nostrils…
… and fell gracelessly down towards the minefield.
Zoro was just barely able to stop Sanji from jumping down to save her, much to the chef's outrage.
Boo Jack, seeing that the situation was very much against him, fled back to the castle to report to Bear King.
XXXXX
Bear King was not at all happy when he received word that his crew was getting curbstomped by the invaders. He was even less happy when he looked out the window and saw them doing it, easily fighting their way through the hundreds of low ranking pirates under his flag.
The traps in his castle fared no better. The Straw Hats, properly prepared and equipped and having received some training from the time-looping Luffy, had no trouble either avoiding or brute forcing their way past the traps.
The only good news was that his King Cannon was completed, which gave him a sense of victory and invincibility. After all, this was the weapon that he believed would allow him to conquer all the seas and become Pirate King.
So it was that when the Straw Hats made it to his throne room, he had all his officers gathered to greet them (minus the already defeated Honey Queen), with himself behind the cannon.
"You brats gave me a lot of trouble, but it ends here." Bear King said angrily. "With my King Cannon complete, nobody can stand in my way. I will be the Pirate King!"
"Are you dumb?" Luffy asked, tilting his head sideways in confusion.
This prompted deadpan stares from his whole crew, plus Borodo and Akisu.
"WHAT?!" Bear King echoed in outrage. It had been a long time since anyone dared be so insolent towards him.
"Yeah, dumb." Luffy took it as a request to explain. "First of all, I'm going to be the Pirate King. Second, how would one stupid cannon help you do anything? It couldn't even hurt the fluid girl you've got on your crew and she was super weak. There's plenty of other Logia Devil Fruit users on the Grand Line, you know."
Bear King had honestly not considered that. His entire thought process had been 'big cannon go boom'. Faced with this conundrum, he resolved it in the only way a man of his vast intelligence could.
"SHUT UP!" He roared and fired the cannon.
Luffy was an old pro at dealing with cannon fire. Just because this cannon was slightly bigger than the average ship cannon made no difference. Sucking in air until he was a giant balloon, he relied on his crew to hold him in place while the cannon shell hit him.
To be fair, it was a much more powerful shell than one fired from a normal cannon, and carried an explosive payload instead of simply being an iron ball. Still, it had been designed to explode on either a timer or upon hitting something sufficiently hard.
Luffy's rubbery, air-filled gut was not sufficiently hard. The shell bounced, as cannon shells tend to do when faced with this trick, and rebounded right back at Bear King and his wide-eyed crew.
One should note that the King Cannon was not supposed to be fired indoors, which was something that Bear King had forgotten in his fury. The explosion obliterated the throne room and a large chunk of the castle below.
The Trump Siblings had just enough time to realize that they fucked up before being wiped from existence. The Straw Hats, meanwhile, had fortuitously still been behind an inflated Luffy and remained untouched by the explosion. Their captain was both quite tough and his rubbery constitution means that the shockwaves produced by the King Cannon were significantly less dangerous to him. On top of that was his rudimentary skill with Armament Haki, which gave him extra durability and prevented any real damage.
They were still sent flying out of the castle, though. Luffy had to grab most of them to keep them close, and then they used his body as a parachute to drift over Clockwork Island.
"Uh oh." Borodo gulped, looking down.
"Uh oh?" Nami echoed. "What do you mean 'uh oh'?"
"Clockwork Island is kept stable by giant gears, and I think we just destroyed the control mechanism." He explained with dread, seeing said giant gears grinding to a halt.
"Ah, that's too bad. It was a cool island." Luffy commented blandly, watching as the island began to tilt. He might have been more upset if he couldn't see the people already jumping off and opening parachuted. They'd clearly been prepared for this.
"No, the sexy lady!" Sanji wailed, staring down at the clearly panicking form of Honey Queen as she kept triggering the land mines in her rush to escape.
It didn't really hurt her since she was a Logia, but it blew her apart and forced her to waste time pulling herself together. Time that she didn't have.
"She's the enemy, Love Cook. Forget about her." Zoro grunted mercilessly.
"We can save her and she'll swear eternal loyalty to our crew!" Sanji argued. "Let me down there. The lady needs her chivalrous knight! I can teach her how to cook and she'll grow to love me!"
"She's not a good person. I don't want her on my crew." Luffy decreed, as immune to the charms of women as ever.
"SHE'LL BECOME A GOOD PERSON!"
But Luffy remained unmoved. His crew would have only cool people on it, so Honey Queen was left to topple into the ocean alongside Clockwork Island.
Sanji wailed dramatically at the loss of the sexy lady, but was not actually cripple by grief. He only sulked for a few days.
XXXXX
Luffy was not surprised when he woke up back on his dinghy, and merely released an annoyed sigh. As he had expected, the little side-adventure on Clockwork Island had delayed them enough that they missed saving Laboon.
XXXXX
OMAKE – Curses!
The world he'd ended up in through some means was so boring and weak that Luffy was in desperate need of something even remotely interesting. That was why he insisted on traveling with the undead crew of the Black Pearl to this Dead Island of theirs and the cursed gold.
He'd always wondered what it was like to be a skeleton!
After the pummeling they received the first time, Barbossa didn't argue. In fact, he thought this was probably for the best. If the absurdly strong stretchy man was also cursed, then they would technically be on the same side as soon as he got bored of being undead.
And he seemed to have a very short attention span, so it shouldn't take long.
Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann had already given up on trying to make sense of the situation and were just going along for the ride. They were still wondering how the green-haired swordsman had managed to get so lost on a ship that he disappeared.
"So, this is the cursed gold?" Luffy said with a careless grin.
"Aye, cursed by the heathen Aztec gods to punish Cortez and his men." Barbossa explained grandly. "Take a single coin from that chest and ye will be as cursed as the rest of us."
Luffy took a single coin from the chest and brought it up to his eye, peering at the skull embossed on it. "So cool. I can't wait to make a skull joke!"
He stood under the moonlight with the coin in hand, eagerly waiting for the transformation. Instead, he got what felt like a tummy ache.
"Eh? I feel weird." He said, pressing a hand to his stomach.
A few seconds later, his skin started to steam. Then the coin in his hand started to vibrate, along with all the other cursed coins, strongly enough to make the stone chest rumble ominously.
"Hector, mate, is this normal?" Jack asked dubiously.
"Nay…" Barbossa replied, just as dubiously.
Luffy growled in pain, clenching his teeth as he fell to his knees. He glared furiously at the cursed gold.
Then every single cursed coin exploded.
"I would like an explanation." Jack said plaintively a minute later, amid the pained groans of the Black Pearl's crew.
"Captain, I can feel pain again." One of the crewmen pointed out, standing up. "And I'm not a skeleton. I think the curse is gone."
"It's gone?"
"It is!"
"Three cheers for Monkey D. Luffy, the destroyer of the curse!" They cheered happily.
Barbossa had been somewhat closer to the chest and pulled himself to his feet with a good deal more difficulty. He had been hoping that his first sensation after getting rid of the curse would be the juicy taste of green apples, but pain would have to do.
"Captain Luffy, I don't suppose you know why the cursed cold would explode when it tried to curse ye?" Barbossa didn't have much hope there. He'd gotten the impression that Luffy wasn't much of a thinker.
Luffy went into a thinking pose for a few minutes, them smacked himself in the head. "Ah! I'm already cursed. If you eat two Devil Fruits, you explode, so maybe that's what happened? It's a good thing that the gold exploded instead of me, that would have sucked shishishishi!"
Looking at the laughing lunatic that had apparently nearly killed himself with his thoughtlessness, Barbossa could only turn his eyes skyward. Alas, he didn't think that God was going to be much inclined to spare him from this idiocy.
"Uh, Captain?" Pintel started hesitantly. "I'm thinking that maybe we should make Luffy the captain."
"Yeah." Ragetti agreed. "No offense, but he's uh…" He finished by gesturing vaguely in the rubber man's direction, not sure how to properly encompass his sheer Luffyness.
Barbossa couldn't even be upset. More exasperated and speechless than anything.
"Ah, that reminds me!" Jack piped up, drew his gun, and shot Barbossa in the heart.
Now Barbossa was upset, and the sour look he shot his former captain as he collapsed let him know it.