Chapter 23

"Let's stop on this island. We really need to restock," Sanji said.

I wasn't surprised we were stopping so soon. Not only did we live on a ship with Luffy, but we also had the Barraki, and just one of those guys could give the captain a run for his money.

Once we docked, we all set out to find anything edible. I didn't know anything about what we could possibly eat off this island, but apparently, Ehlek did. Our dynamic was simple. He'd identify safe berries and plants and I'd pick them up (those big-ass claws of his were useless for grabbing stuff) and stow them away safely for us to use back on the ship.

"Get that one and ... that one too and we should be good," Ehlek instructed.

I picked out his choices and put them into my basket. After a short walk, we rendezvoused with the rest of the crew.

"Hey, anyone notice the weird line along the trail?" Usopp asked. "It's almost like it was made by a bicycle."

That sentence made me freeze. There's only one guy in One Piece who rides a regular bike, and he's way too strong for any or all of us.

I zipped to the front of the group, "Hey, why don't we take a different route to the ship?"

"But this is the fastest way back," Zoro pointed out.

"Uh." Unable to think of a reply, I decided not to even bother with an excuse. Using my super speed, I grabbed the crew in pairs and hauled them back to the ship. I didn't want to take the chance that we could be ruined by someone by wasting time arguing or walking back slowly.

"What the hell was that about?" Sanji asked once everyone was back on the ship.

I ignored him and sped up to the steering wheel. "Alright, how do you steer a ship?" I muttered to myself. I looked around and asked, "Merry? This'd be a good time to start steering yourself."

"Dude, what's up with you?" Fencer asked. "I've seen you get bummed out but I don't think I've ever seen you get this antsy."

"Admiral. Too strong. Need to run," I spat out crudely.

"What!?" most of the crew shouted.

Spreading my arms, I called out, "Any time now, Merry!"

In response to my statement, a nail popped out from the floor and hit me in the head, thankfully with too little force to penetrate my skull. That might've knocked some sense into me, but before I could calm down, or anyone could gawk at how our ship was alive, a voice interjected.

"Yeah, running won't work. Not with me here." We all went silent and slowly turned to the source of the new voice. The near mirror reflection of me grinned at me in particular, "Come on, you didn't think there'd just be one copy of you, did you?"

Just as he said, this young man was another copy of me, just like Mr. -1. Unlike -1, however, all he was wearing was a long pair of black pants. He also had no mustache, despite keeping my chinstrap beard.

Fencer looked the copy up and down before looking back to me, "You never told me you had a hairy chest."

"At what point would that have been relevant?" I asked incredulously.

"If I can interrupt again?" the shirtless me butted in. "I already told Aokiji where you guys are." He walked over to the edge of the ship, "And whaddya know? Here he is."

Robin's pupils shrank at the news and she, and the rest of the crew, ran to the rails of the ship to confirm what the other me said.

While the crew spoke to one another in disbelief at the admiral's presence and appearance, I sighed and hopped off the ship. I should have known better than to run from a fight.

Fencer quickly followed me, "Why'd you get off the ship, dude?"

"I sense a fight might be coming and I don't wanna risk damaging the Merry," I answered simply.

Aokiji waved me off, "Don't get your pants in a knot. I didn't come here to fight."

'Yeah, until you change your mind and try to kill us,' I thought. Knowing it'd be futile to try and throw the first punch, I had Skeleton Buddy appear and had him tell the crew about Aokiji's powers. Might as well let them know what they're in for if worse came to worse.

Fencer crawled onto my shoulder, asking, "What can this guy do that's got you so scared?"

"He's got Logia powers and we don't have a way around them," I whispered back.

"What element's he got?"

"Ice. And no, your fire won't work, so don't even think about it."

"What?! But fire always beats ice!"

"Hey, Oda made the rules, not me," I sassed. Looking back up at the ship, I called out, "Hey, other me! I've got some questions for you."

The shirtless me kindly obliged and hopped off the ship, followed by the Kiddy Trio, leaving the rest of the crew to address Aokiji. "So, what did you wanna know?"

Luffy raised his hand, "Oh, oh, how about your name? Why don't you have a shirt? What happened to your mustache?"

The other me chuckled and held up a hand, "Okay, settle down, spaz. My name's Falco, a shirt would interfere with my powers, and I shaved my 'stache to stand out from my partner."

"How would wearing a shirt interfere with your power?" Usopp asked, rightfully curious about such a statement.

"Sorry, anything more than that is classified." Falco grinned as he turned his attention to the admiral and the rest of the crew. "Hey, Aokiji, just like we talked about."

The Ice-Man sighed, "You sure? Seems like a lot of work."

"You're an admiral. It'll take, like, five seconds!" Falco pointed out, annoyed.

Aokiji nodded and faced the rest of the crew, "Sorry about this, everybody, but my compatriot is insistent that I do my duty as a Navy officer and take you out." The crew tensed up at his words as he continued. "Between Nico Robin, these weird alien things, and a kid who beat a Warlord, I'd say it's safe to assume you'll be a real threat down the line. Especially you, Robin."

"Why single her out? Several of us are stronger than she is," Pridak pointed out.

Aokiji proceeded to explain that Robin's bounty reflected her threat to the government, not her battle strength, as well as how duplicitous she was, making the Pridak and some of the other Barraki glare at her as she ignored their looks.

"I see," he muttered.

I could only watch as the scene played out like I remembered: Aokiji attacked Robin and the Monster Trio tried fighting him, only to get various body parts frozen for their trouble. Having extra crew members this time didn't help either. Aokiji just regenerated when Fencer tried to melt him, much to her frustration, and Kalmah and Mantax made the wise decision to not even bother trying. We could only handle so many injuries and past adventures had proven that sometimes biding time was more important than immediately destroying an opponent.

Right when it looked like Aokiji would get his hands on Robin, something hit him in the shoulder. We all looked on in awe as he held his shoulder, looking surprised himself.

"That actually stung a bit," the admiral commented. "But how?"

"So I was right." We all turned to see Pridak, his stance showing that he'd just launched a Monsoon. "Since your powers come from a Devil Fruit, a water-based attack can get past your regeneration."

Aokiji didn't look fazed. "Do that again," he dared.

Obliging, Pridak slashed at the air, launching another blade of water-infused razor wind.

This time, however, the deep blue blade of air froze the second it made contact with Aokiji. "Now that I know it's water, that won't be working on me anymore."

Pridak growled and lowered his sword, silently admitting the admiral had his number. It was his own fault, he shouldn't have given his secrets away.

As Aokiji advanced on Robin again, I was stunned when Ehlek of all people stood between them.

"You're fighting for nothing," the admiral claimed. "If I don't end you, that woman behind you will."

Raising a frozen hand, Aokiji moved to grab him, and that was when Ehlek let loose, zapping him with a neon blue bolt from his spines. To his credit, Aokiji didn't scream despite clearly being in pain.

When he was finished, Ehlek asked me, "Skeleton, is this woman as bad as the admiral says she is?"

I gave him a firm answer, "Not. At. All."

Without taking his eyes off Aokiji, Ehlek addressed the rest of the crew, "You all heard the skeleton. He of all people would know if we can trust Nico (Robin?). If he says she's clear, then she's clear."

Shock and elation coursed through me as I watched a member of the Barraki stand up for someone, even if it was just by asking someone else to vouch, and by the look on her face, Robin felt the same way.

"Dinosaur," the green Barraki addressed Nami. "This man's ice powers make him even more conductive than a regular human. You and I may be the only ones who can drive him off."

Falco walked up beside Aokiji, grinning, "Two on one, you guys have maybe a two percent chance of winning." When Aokiji gave him a look, he shrugged, "I was guessing, okay? Anyway, with me here, your chances are absolute zero."

I stepped up, "You're not a Logia. You should be easy compared to him."

Aokiji raised a hand, "Hold on. A full-scale battle is way more than I bargained for when I came to this island."

Thinking fast, Ehlek made a proposal, "Then I have an idea to settle this quickly. Are you a betting man, admiral?"

"That depends. What do you have in mind?" Aokiji asked, skeptical.

"If I can bring you to your knees with my next move, will you leave us be? And no, it won't be a lightning attack," Ehlek offered.

All eyes fell on Aokiji, who put a hand to his chin in contemplation. After 30 nail-biting seconds of utter silence, he made his decision, "Alright, you have a deal. But if, by any chance, this special move of yours kills me, Falco here has free reign to wipe you all out. Not just that, but if you can't faze me, then you all willingly turn yourselves in."

"Adding a condition to ensure I won't kill you? Clever. Not to worry, though. I doubt this would kill anyone, let alone someone of your caliber," Ehlek said as he began waving his claws in circles. "I am now assaulting your mind with subliminal messages."

A bathtub full of water.

A running shower head.

A bar of soap.

Some creepy southern girl.

"Are you nuts!? There's no way that's gonna do anything!" Usopp shouted. Ehlek redirected his gaze to Aokiji, who was down on one knee, panting and sweating. Usopp blinked a few times in surprise. "Well, I'll be damned."

Ehlek chuckled, "I'd say I've won this bet. We'll be on our way, admiral."

The green Barraki began walking back to the ship, beckoning for the rest of us to follow. Right before we boarded, Falco zipped in front of us with the Shave technique. "Relax, I'm gonna leave you alone too. I just wanted to leave you with something." With that, he sped away.

Not knowing what to make of that, we boarded our ship and began sailing away.

"What do you think was with that new version of you?" Fencer asked me.

"I don't know," I shrugged. Suddenly, a large, silver mass followed by a trail of neon red flames soared overhead. I gawked, "No way."

Fencer raised an eyebrow, "What the hell was that thing?"

"I think that was Falco," I said, still staring off into the distance.

Later that evening, Robin closed the door behind her and pulled out a piece of paper, the one Declan's clone had passed to her when he left. She unfolded it and read it, the contents worried her based on the way her brow furrowed.

"So what if a few of them trust you? You know the rest don't," a voice behind her read the note.

Not hesitating, Robin spun around and crossed her arms, creating several limbs to hold the intruder in place. She realized a second later it was Pridak.

Pridak growled and flexed, forcing the arms to release him, "Please. That didn't work on Mantax, and I'm stronger than he is."

"If I scream, someone will come," Robin frowned.

"Yes, they will," Pridak agreed, unfazed by the threat. "But I didn't sneak in here to fight, I noticed that young man slipping you that paper and was curious."

Right as Robin was about to relax a bit, Pridak said something that shook her to the core, "I can only assume he's trying to play on your fear of abandonment."

"...How do you know about that?" Robin asked, too shocked to be angry at his bluntness.

"Sometimes you mumble in your sleep, and with my sharp hearing, I can hear you from the men's cabin," the white Barraki explained. "The things you've said, plus the fact that you often say them while having night terrors, allowed me to figure things out. I still don't know all the details, but with all that said, care to fill me in on the rest?"

Robin looked down at the ground before raising her head again, "How do I know I can trust you with this?"

Pridak shook his head, "Trust is never a guarantee, it's a risk. You can either have the courage to take it or you can cower and keep to yourself. Excuse me, we have an eavesdropper."

The white Barraki opened the door and looked around. "Aha." He came back in, dragging Luffy with him. "This innocent fool is the captain. If you won't trust him with your secret, then don't bother trusting me. Either way, just don't waste our time by hesitating."

Looking between the two, Robin took a deep breath and decided to take the risk and revealing what she'd been hiding. And so, she told them the fate of her home island, Ohara. When she was done, Luffy had an uncharacteristically serious look on his face.

"Don't tell the rest of the crew," Robin asked, to which they both nodded.

They all exited the room, to find Declan and Fencer passing by.

"What was going on in there?" Fencer asked.

Luffy instantly lost his serious look and panicked slightly as he tried to think of a cover story. Fortunately, he thought of one quickly. "Robin was just, uh, talking about how big her butt is."

"What?" Robin, Fencer, and Declan all asked in unison.

Luffy looked to Pridak, "Right?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Pridak shrugged as he walked away.

Fencer was trying and failing to keep a calm face, "I, uh, excuse me. I gotta go do some stuff." She hopped off her partner's shoulder and walked around a corner.

The entire ship shook with laughter for the next 4-5 minutes, with Robin glaring at Luffy throughout all of it.

Fencer sat on a rail on the upper deck, watching Zoro and Declan having a typical sparring session. This time, however, she decided to interrupt. "Hey, uh, Zoro? I need your help with something."

"Why me? Couldn't you ask him?" Zoro asked, pointing a sword at Declan.

"I wanna talk to you about sword stuff, so no, I can't ask him," the fire ferret answered.

Zoro's eyes widened a bit and he looked back at Declan, "You're off the hook for now." As the skeleton left, Zoro asked his little crewmate, "So, when you say 'sword stuff,' what exactly do you mean?"

"I've got fire powers and I'm pretty good with my tail as is, but I still wound up out cold on Skypiea. That got me thinking that maybe I need to get stronger," Fencer explained. She held her bladed tail in front of her face and gazed at it for a few seconds before continuing, "You made up a whole sword fighting style for yourself, so I figured maybe you'd have some tips for how I could do something like that."

"Hold that thought," Zoro said. He then called out, "Hey, Chopper, get out here!"

The Straw Hats' doctor quickly arrived upon being called, "Is something wrong?"

"You bet something's wrong. I just remembered you haven't done any training since we were in Jaya, so we've gotta make up for lost time." Taking a moment to get some dumbbells, Zoro tossed them to Chopper, who shifted into his Heavy Point to catch them. "Do 50 rows, and when you're done, do 50 weighted squats."

"That sounds like a lot," Chopper said nervously.

"You won't get stronger otherwise. Now get to it." As the reindeer began his regimen, Zoro gave his attention back to Fencer, "Sorry, I wanted to get that out of the way before I forgot. Anyway, you say you wanna make up a new sword style?"

"That's right," Fencer nodded.

"That won't be easy or simple. It took me years to develop my techniques into what they are now," Zoro explained.

"So you can't help me?" Fencer lowered her head, prepared to walk away. "Well, thanks anyway."

Zoro smiled, "Hold up. If you wanna make up a whole new style for yourself, that's up to you, but I can at least teach you some basic one-sword moves that any beginner should know, just to give you a starting point."

That made Fencer perk up, "That works too!"

I watched as Zoro drilled Fencer in some basic sword moves. It was cute to see her get some formal training.

"Hey, Declan, are you free right now?"

Turning around, I saw the voice belonged to Nami. "What's up?"

"Remember what I said back when we beat that priest?" she asked.

I sifted through my memories and realized she was talking about what she said to SB after they knocked out Shura. "You actually want me to teach you martial arts? What about your Clima-Tact?"

"I'm still using that. It'd just be nice to mix brawn in with my brains when I fight," she replied.

I might've questioned further, but the idea of getting to teach someone was kind of exciting, so I didn't care about her reasons. I flashed her a smile and nodded. "Well, let's get started, then."

First, I made sure she had a firm stance and knew how to hold her fists. After that, I began teaching her basic blocks and strikes.

"Let's see. This was how Nocturn did it, right?" Pridak said as he floated in the depths of the ocean.

He flung his hand out, scattering thousands of small teeth he'd collected from sharks in the current.

When the teeth aligned just right, Pridak struck at them with a punch. The force caused the teeth to vibrate and, in a flash of light, fuse into one, creating a new shark tooth blade to replace the one he'd lost on Sky Island.

"Excellent." With his work done, the white Barraki swam back to the surface and leapt onto the deck of the Merry.

Luffy approached him the second he caught sight of Pridak. "Oh, hey, I was looking for you."

"And here I am. Now what do you want?" Pridak asked impatiently.

"Remember that thing you did where you moved very fast? Could you teach me how to do that?" the captain asked.

Pridak nodded, "Ah, right, that. I said I would teach you if you begged. So start begging."

"Uh, pretty please?" Luffy said, a bit put off by the demand.

Pridak shook his head. "That wasn't begging, that was just being polite. Try again."

Luffy took a second to think of something that'd please his alien teammate and came up with something, "Please, Sir Pridak, the king of awesomeness, will you teach me to go super fast?"

"Knowing you, I suppose that's as good as that's going to get," Pridak sighed. He took a stance, "Alright, pay close attention to my feet." In the blink of an eye, the white Barraki had literally run circles around his captain. "You saw that, right?" Luffy nodded and Pridak continued, "Good, now you try it."

"Hey, Chopper, I got your-" Usopp cut himself off as he saw an unusual sight: Chopper doing pushups with Zoro standing on his back. "Uh, Zoro? Mind if I borrow Chopper?"

The swordsman stepped off Chopper's back, prompting the reindeer to collapse. He was at least nice enough to help Chopper up. "On your feet. You'll catch your breath faster."

The doctor did as he was told and found he was catching his breath faster, if only slightly. "What is it, Usopp?"

Usopp grinned as he unveiled something behind his back, revealing it to be a large boomerang. It was white in color, with a couple gold protrusions here and there, giving it a strong resemblance to the dragon whose parts it came from."I give you the Dragonrang!"

Gasping in delight, Chopper dashed up to the upper deck and swiped the boomerang from Usopp, "Whoaaaa. This is so cool!"

"I thought about making a bow and arrows, but this way, you'll have a ranged weapon that doesn't run out of ammo," Usopp explained. "Go ahead, give it a try."

Chopper grinned and threw the boomerang hard, so hard that it disappeared into the horizon. "Uh, is it gonna come back?"

"Give it a minute. You threw it pretty hard," Usopp said, staring where the weapon had flown.

True to his word, the boomerang returned soon, with Chopper snatching it out of the air with ease. "Maybe I should practice how hard I throw this."

It wasn't all training, though. There were some fun times too.

Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, and Fencer all dashed out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind them. Their relief was short-lived when they saw Sanji standing in front of them.

The chef pointed at the smoke seeping through the door's cracks. "What the hell is happening in there?" he asked rhetorically.

The more immature members of the crew looked amongst themselves before Usopp came up with an answer, "Aurora Borealis?"

Sanji's visible eye widened in disbelief, "Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of day, in the middle of the ocean, localized entirely within our kitchen?"

"Yeah," Luffy answered with an easy smile.

"...Can I see it?" Sanji asked, his disbelief turning to curiosity.

"No," Chopper said bluntly.

At that moment, a jar of nails rolled , bumping into Sanji's leg. The jar suddenly exploded, the nails all neatly landing on their heads, spelling the letters "BS" on the ground.

"Thanks for the tip, Merry," Sanji said, clenching his fists.

Just before the impending beatdown, Fencer yelled, "I can't believe we got ratted out by a ship!"