Chapter 9
Reunification
"Hey! Max! Maxwell! …DAMMIT TREVELYAN, I SAID HOLD ON!" Franky panted as he ran up the stairs.
Maxwell stopped, looking back at Franky, "You know we still have to find the others, right?"
Franky and Robin had both been running trying to catch up with the mage. They were on a new level within the Thriller Bark mast. A stone hall with series of archways, sectioning itself, as if it were apart of some great catacomb. Maxwell had been at the top of the stairs.
"Shut up!" Franky barked back. "What the hell was that!?"
Maxwell let out a sigh, "What?"
"THE THING!" Franky yelled back. "You know! The whole, 'Your friend still awaits you at the fated place,' bullshit! What the hell was that about!?" The mage had implied that he knew just about everything about Laboon and Brook's situation, and left them all stunned. That whole conversation may have been emotionally charged, but Maxwell wasn't usually that cryptic. Especially since Maxwell asked if Brook believed he was human. He just left them all back on the spider silk breezeway!
Maxwell let out another exasperate breath, "Look. This whole situation just became a whole lot bigger than I expected... I'm trusting a lot of things on faith right now, so forgive me if not not being straightforward. This involves a whole series of events back to when our crew entered the Grand Line, and Luffy needs to know about this! Not to mention the existential crisis I'm trying not to have right now, so I would kindly ask you too zip it!" Maxwell stopped for a moment, took a breath, trying to calm down.
"…I can tell you the whole story later. Right now, we need to either find Nami, Usopp, and Chopper, or find a way back to the Sunny."
"Fine," Franky scowled, "But I expect an explanation before all of this is over!" Especially about Brook and that whale, Laboon… "Uuuugh~!"
"Oh for f #$& sake…!" the mage decided to walk away. He did not want to deal with another one of Franky's mood swings right now.
"WAF WAS TAT, YOU BASTARD!" Franky followed behind, despite his blubbering, "I'M NAW CRYIN'!" Robin was also looking at him. "DON' LOOK TIS WAY! …Hau…!"
Robin frowned at the cyborg, "Franky… Why did you ask him such a question?" Bring up what Brook had promised his crew. It was a personal question, one that could have been saved for later even if Maxwell did have some personal insights.
The cyborg sniffled, trying to keep his nose clear. "Shut uph, I can ask whateber I want… Let's just hurry up! …Ha geez… Dammit, I love that skeleton! There's no one like him, dung-heads! …Wooooo…"
"That's for sure…" Maxwell grimaced, muttering to himself.
He was taking a chance, trusting Brook. Maxwel was trusting Brook actually be human, and the result of an unfortunate Devil Fruit's curse, rather than a possessed corpse without its flesh. Men he could reason with… Spirits, not so much.
"We heard that," his familiars echoed in his head.
"Shut up…!" Maxwell groaned. He needed to think.
Brook represented just about every impossibly that Maxwell had been taught at the Circle. It went against his education and his faith, even if Maxwell had been disillusioned with the Chantry's doctrine.
Magic could not resurrect the dead. Brook had eaten the Revive-Revive Fruit.
One must not break the sanctity of the Golden City. Brook had seen the afterlife and was promptly sent back to the mortal realm. Without any apocalyptic consequences!
And only spirits can possess dead corpses. But Brook was a fully articulate skeleton, WITH HIS ORIGINAL AFRO STILL STUCK ON HIS HEAD!
If there was a curse for this back in Thedas, it wasn't a funny one. Maxwell had heard of unfortunate folk being cursed to turn into stone statues before. Tevinter seemed to have a knack for that. But to live in the bleached body of your corpse was not a fate Maxwell wished on anyone.
Most curses could be undone when certain conditions were met. However, Maxwell wasn't sure it could be done with a Devil Fruit. Believing Brook was cursed was easier than believing the alternative… And that alternative was a dangerous thought.
The idea that you can actually bring back the dead—
Maxwell shook his head, snapping himself out of it. He had enough to worry about. They had to come up with a plan, to deal with this island of undead and defeat their shadowy puppet master. Not mention finding the rest of the crew…
Luffy, Sanji, and Zoro were probably already back at the Sunny. Unconscious, and without their shadows most likely, but they were at least all in one place. That left finding Chopper, Nami, and Usopp. They were the reason they made land on this island in the first place! Before this all devolved into an undead laden mess. And they were no closer to finding them than before!
There was a slight rumble throughout the tower, enough to give Maxwel pause.
He, Robin, and Franky had been climbing up this tower for a while now, going up staircases after staircase. They had spotted a grand staircase from a window, earlier. It seem to lead all the way to the harbour, but the zenith was higher up the mast.
The mage looked around, trying to identify the source, but nothing in the room gave him any idea what had caused the vibration… Then they heard it.
"MMMMMEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAATTTTT!"
"I AM HUUUNNNGGGRYYYYY!"
It was a voice! Aloud one! You could probably have heard it throughout the entire castle!
"…Okay. What the hell was that?" said Franky. With words that deep and that loud, it was more terrifying than they had any right to be. They'd heard those phrases enough times from Luffy already.
…Oh f #$.
"That," Maxwell said slowly, "might have been… Luffy's zombie."
It was a horrifying thought. Whatever Moria has created, it was going to be huge, if that voice was any indication. Maxwell was pretty sure creating a zombie wasn't supposed to be that loud… But now it made him wonder what Zoro or Sanji's zombies were like. If this zombie was going to be anything like Luffy, then they definitely had to go get their captain!
"…We have to move." Robin started running again.
"Right!" the boys agreed. So, they kept running.
Franky, Robin, and Maxwell ran up staircase after staircase. The mast of Thriller Bark shared many similarities with the mansion below. Gothic architecture, suits of armor, oil paintings, glass windows, long dark curtains. The decoration was a little less refined than the mansion, but this place was also designed for support. You could see the cobblestone and a ribbed arch every few feet. This building was just the pedestal, compared to the tower's worth of lumber above.
It wasn't until they were near the grand arcing bridge that they heard a commotion. A group of zombies were heading down the arcing bridge, into one of it's the first chambers. The zombies didn't seem to have noticed them, but they were heading towards something.
"There are too many zombies coming from above and below!" "If we get caught, then our shadows will be taken too!" "AAAAAH, THERE ARE ZOMBIE PAINTINGS TOO!"
It was Usopp, and Chopper! They were surrounded by zombies and they were slowly being drowned in the crowd.
"Damn it! That's dirty! You rely too much on your immortality! We can't let ourselves be caught—!" "Dammit, let go of me! NOOOO!"
Maxwell threw Franky his pouch of salt, "Robin, Franky! Pick off the stragglers!"
"Oh, I'll do more than that Longbeard!" Franky grinned, lowering his shades.
Maxwell had disappeared into a Frost Step. A trail of ice a frost followed in Maxwell's wake, freezing many a zombie on the upper staircase.
He reappeared in the centre of the room, around where Usopp and Chopper were, then brought two fingers to his third eye. "Fortifying Blast!" A green sphere of kinetic energy blew up from the sea of zombies. Undead were sent flying all over the place, creating confusion, and a space from within the crowd.
"WHOA~!" "THE HECK WAS THAT!?" "WAIT THERE'S A PERSON THERE!"
Zombies yelled in confusion as walls of ice and fire erupted along the walls. They erupted right below the surprise zombies, shocked at suddenly being caught in the elements.
"HEY!" The zombies all turned to see who was up the stairs. Franky held a zombie by the neck as the shadow rose out of it's mouth. "Get your mitts off my sworn brothers, you punks…!"
"WHAT!? MORE PEOPLE!?" "Wait—! OUR FRIENDS ARE BEING PURIFIED!" "Who are these guys!? This is rotting bad!"
Franky and Robin stood on the floor as dead zombies laid around them. They had been dropping pieces of salt into zombies mouths as Franky picked them up, and Robin restrained them. Some of the corpses still had the black molasses of their shadowy souls rising up from their mouths, so it was like the two Straw-Hats were standing in a grove of black trees.
Usopp and Chopper realized that they were saved. "GUUUUUYYYYYSSSSS!" "BIG BROOOOOO~!" They shook out of the relaxed grip of the surprised zombies and sobbed and cried with relief.
Franky looked around at the frightened zombies, "Did we take too long? We're short one." Nami wasn't with them.
Still, Robin had still taken a more cheerful disposition. "Usopp. Chopper. Are you alright?"
"WAAAAAAAHAAAHAAA~!" The two rescued crew hugged each other, still crying their eyes out. They were so relieved that their friends had came and found the.
Maxwell lanced a fireball through the crowd of zombies, towards the lower staircase. Undead jumped out of the way to dodge the mage's spell. These were the zombies that had an aversion to fire. "Come on! Let's go!"
Usopp and Chopper immediately made a dash for it, running through the opening Maxwell had made. Maxwell and Robin then ran down the stairs together while Franky barrelled through the disorganized zombies. And these undead made no attempt to follow…
O O O
They were running down the stairs. "We were trying to chase Luffy down here! This is the passageway where the ones who have their shadows taken are transported," said Usopp.
"Well, that at least confirmed our theory!" said Maxwell. It really was a giant set of stairs! Almost as big as the ones back at Water 7, without the threat of drowning.
"Really?" Chopper took a sniff in his reindeer form, "Luffy was definitely taken through here! If we follow this, Nami will… Will Nami even be alright!?" Chopper looked to Usopp.
"It's not as if her life is in danger. If we have a fresh start, we will definitely be able to save her!" Usopp gritted his teeth trying to reassure himself as much as Chopper.
"Oh yeah, what made that monsterous roar we heard earlier!?" asked Franky, "We heard it and came running, but Maxwell seems to think—"
"It was definitely Luffy's shadow!" Usopp interrupted. "We'll tell you everything we saw! Long story-short, we're in big trouble! Did you guys go through the graveyard to get here?"
"Yeah, we did. What happened after you entered the mansion?" asked Maxwell.
"You didn't see a coach?" Usopp shook his head trying to remain focused, "Never mind! When we arrived at the mansion, we met Dr. Hogback and his zombie maid Cindry. They invited us in. We had food, dessert, and even offered us rooms and a bath for the night. Nami took a shower while we stood outside, but that pervert was peeping in the showers!"
"Wait, Dr. Hogback?" Franky frowned.
"No! That invisible man, Absalom!" said Chopper.
Maxwell thought back to when they were caught in the tide. "Big hat, long coat, lion muzzle stitched on his face?"
"Yeah! He took Nami as we tried to follow Luffy! He plans to marry her tonight!" said the reindeer.
Robin looked at Chopper, "Marriage…!? Hmph, well I definitely owe him a slap the next time I see him." Especially after Absalom had been caught visibly licking Robin like some sort of delectable dessert.
"We saw a few things while we were in the mansion..." Chopper's voice then became a bit sadder, "We discovered Dr. Hogback's office, and his lab, but we were caught. He's been the one operating on the zombies… His assistant, Victoria Cindry… She's one of the first zombies Hogback ever made. A famous actress Hogback actually knew, back when she was alive. He was apparently a fan of hers back then..."
Maxwell bit the inside of his lip as he looked at Chopper, "…Chopper, I am so sorry you had to find out about him this way." They were already too late. Chopper had met his hero, and Hogback turned out to be a despicable villain, that went against everything he believed in! Maxwell knew Chopper had no problems with his own magic, but Hogback had been desecrating graves, preparing offerings for Moria to manipulate. This wasn't curing death. It was just a mockery.
"Anyways," Usopp decided to change the topic, "Zombies were carrying us to Moria, but they botched the transport and woke us up. So we got to see more of the castle, more specifically the garden! We found Sanji's zombie. He was like some cross between a dog and a penguin, but there were even more animal zombies! Nami even made friends with one! Though we were chased around by that pig in a wedding dress for a while…"
"A pig in a wedding dress…?" Franky repeated slowly.
"Oh yeah! It apparently wanted to marry Absalom and saw Nami as a love rival for a bit. The hog only stop when Nami told it she was a man."
Franky blinked, "…Okay, this island is weird." The crew all knew it was just Nami lying to save her own skin, but those were words they had not expected to hear.
Usopp nodded, "You're telling us! We hid in a giant teddybear, that turned out to be zombie, just to hide from Absalom! But that oversized plushie was a pushover next to that goth girl, Perona. He couldn't get a word in just too oust us!"
"Perona?" said Robin. "We've heard that name come up before. She's the one controlling all the ghosts that sap your willpower, correct?"
Chopper nodded with a hum, "Yeah! We saw her use those ghosts on Luffy before he could get away. That's when Moria cut off Luffy's shadow and stuff it in a massive giant called Oars!" The reindeer then looked at Maxwell, "By the way Max, Moria's really interested in your shadow. He wants to see if a zombie can use your magic."
"…Well, I'm not going to give him the chance now, am I?" Maxwell said jokingly. Still, he grimaced at the idea inside his head. He did not want his companions to deal with a potential Arcane Horror, if Moria could manage it.
Usopp gave him a brief smile, "That's the spirit! …But yeah, that giant zombie, Oars, was the one who shouted that awful sound earlier! He's like a giant among giants! I can't help but think of Luffy's zombie shouting and making a huge mess everywhere…"
Franky scowled, "Trust me. We've been having similar thoughts… There's the Sunny!"
Robin, Franky, Usopp, Chopper, and Maxwell had finally reached the end of the staircase. They were now on the battlement walls overlooking the harbour. The Thousand Sunny was still there, it's rear end trapped in the massive spiderweb, but they could worry about that later. Something looked wrong with the ship.
There was a ladder laid down on the walkway beside them. Franky lowered it so they could climb down, then they could see what was wrong. A stepped plank was also leaning against the Sunny.
The Thousand Sunny had been ransacked!
"Tch. At least they didn't do to much damage." The paint on the haul was all scratched up, like someone had taken to scratching on the wood.
"This was the zombie's doing," Robin observed. "The dock is full of muddy footprints," Robin observed.
"Huh!? So there still might be more!" Chopper looked around as they climbed the plank up to their deck, "…There are no zombies around, right?"
Maxwell looked down to his hips, "Guys?"
"Hold on," said Mordred. There was a moment of silence but then he could hear the spirit inside his head again. "Wait…! No~ Sunny NO—!" Mordred was being mauled by the fledgling klabauterman, again.
"…Sunny says there aren't any zombies around," Maxwell confirmed, half listening to his demon become a chew toy.
"Yeah, they looted us pretty good alright… Not that we had anything worth taking," said Franky. The main deck was a mess. Boxes and barrels were scattered about and all turned over. Spare rigging and other tool were strewn on the lawn, and bedsheets and canvas was hanging haphazardly over the doors and railings. Splatters of dark liquid were all over the walls as well.
"What about Luffy, Sanji and Zoro? I don't see them anywhere…" Usopp looked around.
Chopper shifted back into his hybrid form, and tried calling out. "LUFFY~! SANJI~! ZORO~!"
"Sunny…?" Maxwell paused, but didn't get a response this time. He could hear Salem and Mineive trying to pry Mordred out of Sunny's mouth. "…Search the ship. They can't be far." Especially if Moria didn't want his victims exposed to sunlight.
The whole ship was a mess. The aquarium bar had been vandalized. The bed chambers were overturned. Tools and bits were scattered throughout the workshop, and the library had been torn apart. But it was Usopp who found Sanji, Luffy, and Zoro. "In here! I found them, inside the dining room!"
…And they looked absolutely ridiculous. "The zombies sure took their time decorating them…"
All three of them were sitting in chairs, sitting the wrong way of course, and unconscious. The zombies had clearly had enough time to play a practical joke on them. Zoro looked like a well pump. Clothespins pulled at each corner of his mouth like a frog, held by a coat hanger. One of his boots was on top of his head. Sanji had his chin and cheeks pulled into a triangle. His hair had bee pulled and wrapped in bow sticking out of the top of his head, making him look like some demented baby. And Luffy had three pigtails on his head and two chopsticks between his nostrils and lower lip. His hat, on top of all of it, made it look like some miniature scarecrow.
"…That's just cruel." Usopp removed the decorations and tried shaking them awake, "Hey! You guys, wake up! This isn't the time to be sleeping! We're in a serious situation here!"
They didn't even budge.
"Leave this to me," Franky approached the trio, and he gave them each a whammy.
"HEY!" WHAM! "WAKE UP!" BONK! "THIS ISN'T THE TIME TO BE SLEEPING!" CRACK!
The chairs broke from beneath them but the Monster Trio did not wake up.
"…Do they even have a nervous system?" Franky had been using an hammer swing with both of his hands, leaving the trio with three large goose eggs on their heads. "It guess it can't be helped. They'll just have to dodge this bazooka." The cyborg then detached his left wrist, revealing his arm cannon.
However, before he could fire anything, Usopp stepped up in front of him, "No, it's alright… I think I have enough experience with this crew to know what to do." The sniper then cleared his throat.
"Heh-hem… THERE'S A BEAUTIFUL MASTER SWORDSWOMAN OUTSIDE WITH MEAT!"
…
…
…
"…Beautiful?" "…Meat?" "…Master swordswoman?"
Maxwell facepalmed while Chopper yelled, "These guys are hopeless!" Sanji, Luffy, and Zoro had each woke up with a groan. Of course that had woken them up!
Luffy then realized he was awake. "YOU BASTARD! GIMME BACK MY SHADOW—"
Franky grabbed Luffy's face before he could attack anything, "Calm down! Moria isn't here!"
Luffy froze at hearing his nakama's voice and lowered his fists, "Huh? Where are we then…?"
"We're on the Sunny," said Franky.
"Sunny!?" Zoro clutched his head, still a little groggy. "How did we end up back here—?" He then noticed what wasn't at his feet. "…No… It wasn't a dream. My shadow is gone!" His boot was off as well, but he was more preoccupied by the lake of shade he was providing. "This feels so weird…"
"NO~!" They then head Luffy yell from the pantry. He came racing out with a block of cheese and his cheeks stuffed. "THIS IS TERRIBLE! NO—THIS IS IMPORTANT! THERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO EAT!"
Maxwell gave him a deadpan stare, "…You're holding a block of cheese there, Luffy."
"CHEESE AND CRACKERS AREN'T ENOUGH TO FILL ME UP! I WANT MEAT~!" Luffy sobbed as he stuffed his face.
Sanji lit a new cigarette, "We had a packed galley. They must have taken everything else and left the emergency rations."
Zoro placed a palm over his eye in disappoint, "Damn, this is humiliating… I should have taken things more seriously…!"
Maxwell sighed, "Trust me Zoro, there was nothing we could have done if those spiders tried to take us." The only reason he, Franky, and Robin didn't get captured was because Telleran decided to play around with them.
"We lost our pirate lunchboxes too… With only cheese… We just can't—"
Sanji interrupted Luffy's pity party, "By the way, I don't see Nami anywhere…"
"Oh… About that…" Usopp and Chopper looked at each other.
Seeing the guilty looks, Sanji immediately grabbed Usopp by the collar, "YOU LET HER GET KIDNAPPED!? WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU CHASE THEM TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!? Scratch that—WHO'S THE ONE THAT DID IT!? I'LL GET HER BACK IMMEDIATELY!"
"I'm sorry!" Usopp flinched in Sanji's grip, "But we weren't in a position to do that! Just listen to what we have to say!"
"Sanji!" Maxwell barked at the chef. Sanji was looking more furious by the second, and now was not the time to be making rash decisions.
"…Grrr!" Sanji lightly pushed Usopp as he let him go. At least he had heard him.
Usopp straighten himself out before starting to speak. "Okay, listen up! Generally thinking, there are two important things we have to get back!"
"Food! Nami!" Luffy pointed out, "…And our shadows right? That makes three."
"Er… One of those isn't a priority," said Usopp. "In the meantime let's focus on Nami and your shadows…"
O O O
So everyone told each other what had happened to them. Maxwell, Franky and Robin spoke of what they had discovered. Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji tales about what they remembered before they were snatched. And Usopp and Chopper mentioned their adventures on the island, and Nami's impending wedding.
"Wha… What—! MARRIAGE!?" They had all previously moved outside to share tales. And Sanji decided to rage on the rails. "ARE YOU SHITTING ME!? HELL NO! I'LL NEVER PERMIT IT!"
Luffy noticed that Sanji's rage had manifested itself as him on fire, "Wow. That guy must have some balls to try and marry Nami…"
"Wait—" Something else went off in Luffy's head, "And you said I'm a behemoth!? They can create a zombie just like that!?" He thought that was so cool!
Zoro crossed his arms, "In that case, we know the identities of Luffy and the cook's zombies, right?" He then noticed their sniper sitting in the corner. "Usopp."
"It…" the so called exorcist was hugging his knees, "It was one of the Warlords…!"
"I've suddenly been engulfed by fear!" Chopper had joined him in sobbing hideously.
"You guys didn't know?" Franky looked at the two scaredy-cats.
"HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW!" Usopp and Chopper yelled back. No one had mentioned it till now, and they had seen the warlord up close and personal.
"Hm. If the zombie acts like the real person…" Luffy looked over at his swordsman, "Then I saw Zoro's zombie!"
"What did it look like?" Zoro asked.
"Hm…" Luffy took a good look at Zoro. "You're both rather similar... And he had the same equipment as you, but I knew it wasn't you though… You weren't wearing any sandals."
Zoro scoffed, "Whatever. So, we have to find a zombie with sandals, a giant, and a penguin-dog. If we throw salt in the mouths of those three zombies, we'll regain our shadows, right?"
"Yeah that's just about it…" Maxwell leaned over and whispered into Franky's ear, "What's a penguin?"
Franky, who sat on their mast's bench, looked at him oddly. "…Think a flightless aquatic waddling bird, with flippers for wings."
"Hm… Okay." Maxwell nodded, starting to have an idea in his head.
"Anyways," Franky addressed the crew, "It was the skeleton guy who told us about their weakness… And how to find you guys."
"Really!?" Luffy lit up with a smile, "You guys saw Brook!?"
"Yeah… And then I asked him a rather rude question…" Franky looked down, disheartened.
"Franky…" Maxwell frowned.
"No Max. You might have thought it, but I'm the one who voiced it." Franky made his confession, "Luffy, ever since you wanted to recruit him, I've been completely denying his existence. Even though he's a flimsy skeleton, after talking him, I realized he had an iron backbone… He's not just a skeleton. He's a real man!"
Truthfully, Franky had shared many of the same concerns Maxwell had, even if the two never talked about it. Franky had grown up on the tall tales of sailors whenever they came into Water 7 for repairs. Even on the Grand Line, some stories were just to incredulous to be true. When Franky had seen Brook, he had thought of everything. From Brook being a bad omen, to him being an undead spy for Moria. Franky was a punk at heart… but even he could hear the honest truth of that skeleton's words.
Maxwell sighed. "Speaking of which, you might as well hear the story now. Luffy! Guys! Brook was apart of the crew that left Laboon!"
Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji froze when they heard that. They knew that name!
"Laboon…" "What?" "Are you for real, Max!?" "He's…"
"He's been adrift in the Florian Triangle for 50 years," Maxwell told them.
Chopper looked around at them confused, "Who's Laboon?"
"Right, you weren't around back then either…" Maxwell stroked his beard as he prepared his story.
"On the entrance of the Grand Line, at the foot of Reverse Mountain, lies the Twin Capes. There, in the waterfall current, we encountered a whale floating in the wake. An Island Whale. It stuck out of the ocean like a monolith, about the size of Thriller Bark itself. The whale stood at the end of the current and we were about to crash into it. Though managed to avoid disaster, Luffy managed to provoke the whale enough to eat us whole."
"You were all eaten whole?" Chopper looked around, enraptured with Maxwell's story.
"Yes, though we managed to get out. We had strangely met an old man inside the whale's stomach. A doctor by the name of Crocus. He was also the lighthouse keeper at the Twin Capes, and had been looking after that whale for the pas 50 years."
Franky's eye widened, "Wait—don't tell me—!"
"That's right Franky," the mage nodded. "That whale's name was Laboon. Back when that whale was just a little tike, he followed after a pirate crew that he had made friends with. The crew loved that whale, but couldn't bare to see it put in danger because of their journey. They wanted to sail all around the world, and this included the Grand Line. Fortunately, they had met Crocus. After making new friends with one another, the pirates eventually said their farewells, promising to return after they had sailed the Grand Line… And they never made it back."
"For 50 years, Laboon has waited at the Twin Capes. Waiting for the day his friends would return. Crocus had tried to find them, but when he returned, all he had was bad news. The pirates had supposedly abandoned their quest and left the Grand Line. But Laboon didn't believe him. Since then, Laboon had taken to ramming himself into the bedrock of Reverse Mountain. Hoping one day he'd break through to the other side of the Grand Line, and find his friends."
Maxwell looked over at their resident rubber-man, "Then Luffy came along." The Straw-Hat captain rubbed the back of his head with an unashamed smile.
"Laboon was slowly killing himself with how frequently he rammed into Reverse Mountain. So Luffy decided to put an end to it. If his old friends couldn't keep their promise, then we would… Though you certainly had a funny way of doing it, Luffy."
"What did he do?" Robin asked.
"He picked a fight with Laboon, declared it a draw, then painted our Jolly Roger on Laboon's snout as a symbol of our promise."
Robin smiled, "Fufufu! That does sound like Luffy."
"Hm," Maxwell agreed. "So long as he doesn't ram into the mountain, and so long as that symbol never fades, we, the Straw-Hat Pirates would definitely come back and tell him all about our adventures. But now…" Maxwell looked at Franky expectantly.
"Now that promise can be fulfilled regardless!" Franky then began to bawl his eyes out. "UWAH~! I LOVE THAT BONE GUY! AND I LOVE THAT WHALE!"
Usopp grinned, "That's unbelievable! They kept that promise for over 50 years!"
Zoro kept on ear covered as he tried to ignore Franky's wailing, "Ugh. To think, that skeleton was one of the nakama Laboon was waiting for…!"
"Wait! What about Brook!?" said Chopper.
Maxwell kneeled next to Chopper, "Well…You know how Brook had been stuck in Florian Triangle for 50 years?" Chopper nodded back his answer. "Well, he's never given up on seeing Laboon again, even with that wreck of a ship. He feels personally responsible, that he has to tell Laboon the truth of what happened to their crew, and has been holding out hope beyond hope that Laboon is still there. Now what does that tell you?"
Chopper felt tear well up in his eyes, "That that is the most beautiful thing I ever heard~!"
Luffy jumped up with a roar, "UWAAA—AH! NOW I'M PUMPED! He's a musician! He's a talking skeleton! He has an afro! And Yohoho—He's one of Laboon's nakama! Even if I have to drag him on board, I'll get him on this ship and make him one of our nakama! Does anyone have an objection!?"
Robin merely chuckled, "Even there were objections, would that change your opinion?"
Maxwell shrugged his shoulders, hiding a grin, "Captain does have final say."
"I want to help him see Laboon again!" "I CONCUR, DAMMIT!" "HELL YEAH! I CONCUR AS WELL! I'M NOT AFRAID OF SKELETONS!"
"That's a given," said the chef. "I'm more concerned about STOPPING NAMI'S WEDDING, DAMN IT!" Sanji burst into flames again. And this time Maxwell thought they might have been real.
Luffy then realized Zoro was no longer on the ship, so he looked down at the harbour, "Zoro! Where are you going?"
The swordsman looked back at his captain, "I'm going to raid the place. We have one more shadow to retrieve, right?"
Luffy grinned, "Shishishishi! Alright you guys! Start preparations for a counterattack! WE'RE GOING TO BLOW THRILLER BARK RIGHT OUT OF THE WATER!"
"YEAH!" "March on!" "You're coming too, idiot!"