Chapter 4: Erumalu, the City of Green, and the Kung Fu Dugongs!
On the ship after Ace was invited on, Vivi sat downstairs, deep in thought, when Sanji came in. "Tea's ready. Come on up to the kitchen."
"Thank you, Sanji-san!"
In the kitchen, Usopp and Luffy began goofing off, with a laughing Venus as the audience across the table. "Heya! I'm Captain Rice Ball Usopp!" The sniper had stuck his finger through his onigiri rice ball, to look like his nose. He moved his hand to a snowman made of rice. "Oh! And who are you?!"
"I'm a riceman!" Luffy beamed. The "riceman" had a pair of forks for arms, a sausage for a nose, and meatballs for eyes.
As Venus laughed, Sanji whacked the two with frying pans. "Quit playing with our food!" He scolded, Venus grimacing in surprise, as Ace couldn't help but smirk. "If you got free time, go wash dishes, or something! Geez!" He grumbled. "I need to finish our packed meals before we cross the river!" He rolled up his sleeves, and began his work.
"Need a hand?" Ace asked, to his surprise.
"No, no," Sanji replied, "You are a guest on board. Just sit back, and relax."
Ace's smirk turned into a warm smile. "All right."
Sanji glanced to his left, and to his frustration, Luffy and Usopp were washing the dishes in the mop bucket from swabbing the deck. "Don't wash the dishes in that mop bucket!"
When he felt a gaze on him, Ace turned to his left; Venus was looking straight at him, elbow on the table, her cheek on her knuckles, and a lovestruck grin on her face, as she ate. "H-hi. Venus, right?"
"Mm hmm," She nodded.
Usopp watched her, as he and Luffy were forced to the sink. Through his scrubbing, he tried to push away his feelings of jealousy; why couldn't he be the one she's fawning over? Ace seemed nice, and he was definitely a cool guy, but he didn't know her like Usopp did.
Outside, a serene Chopper was laying on the stairs. "What a nice breeze!" The "breeze" came from Zoro swinging a giant barbell just a foot away.
Holding her teacup, Vivi walked up the stairs, as Nami was by the prow. "Nami-san, I'd like to land the ship here for a moment."
"Eh? What for?"
"I have an important task for Karoo."
"Karoo?"
After docking, the crew, sans Zoro and Ace, stood on the ground, as Vivi gave Karoo a letter. "Karoo, I want you to go to Alubarna Palace on your own, and deliver this letter to my father. I've written down everything Igaram and I learned about Crocodile, and Baroque Works' schemes. And that I've returned to Alabasta alive with supportive friends." Karoo began to feel nervous. "Can you do it? You'll have to cross the desert on your own." He saluted with a confident quack, before she put the letter in his coat. "Listen. You have to drink your water with care in the desert."
"Karoo! Good luck!" Luffy beamed.
"Now let my father know this kingdom can be saved!" With another quack, Karoo sped off, briefly stopping for a sip, before continuing. "Drink your water with care!" Vivi watched, as he disappeared over the dunes. "Karoo... thank you."
"I knew Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords, was in this country," Ace remarked, "But a pirate trying to steal a kingdom? Sounds like a bad joke." He turned, and leaned back against the railing. "A pirate dropping anchor in one spot, and settling down? Don't tell me he's trying to usurp the throne."
"Alright!" Luffy pumped his fists up, as Sanji and the girls climbed back on the Merry.
"Hold on!" Usopp shouted from the rope ladder. "I'm not on board yet!"
"Me neither!" Venus added from the ground.
"There could be another side to this takeover thing," Ace continued, as Usopp helped Venus up.
"Another side?" Zoro asked.
"Some sort of deeper goal."
"We're finally here!" Luffy announced.
"We're finally going into the desert!" Chopper added. "I bet it'll be hot."
"It gets over 50 c in the daytime!" Nami informed, as she walked down the stairs, now in a more covering, white cowl-neck robe.
"Eh?! It does?!" Chopper slid down the rail.
"What happened, Nami-san?!" Sanji exclaimed in shock upon seeing her. "Where did your dancer outfit go?!"
To his despair, Vivi was in a dark blue robe with white pipelinings on the hood, and down the front, while Venus was in a black robe with a cowl hood bearing a silver Wiccan symbol on the collar, and a spike-hemmed cape with dark purple lining. "Aah! Not you too, Vivi-chan! Why are you dressed like that?!"
"In the desert, any exposed skin will wind up terribly sunburned!" Vivi explained.
Sanji perked up when he saw the shortest girl; she didn't look any different from before. "Venus-chan! I-"
"Here's yours, Venus-san," Vivi handed her a black robe, and she pulled it on.
"Thanks! It looks great!" The bottom front of the hood was kept together with a silver Wiccan symbol on the front, while the back had a spiky-hemmed cape with a dark purple lining. Over her shoulders was a capelet-like layer of black.
"No, Venus-chan!" The chef cried out. "Change back!"
She turned to him with a bemused look, as she pulled the hood over her head. "Sorry to burst your perverted bubble, but I'd rather not get sunburned, thank you very much."
A depressed Sanji laid on the floor. "This is terrible... my dancer girls..." He started rolling in circles.
"Put this on, Luffy-san," Vivi handed him some new clothes.
"Okay! Thank you!"
"Let's get ready to disembark," Zoro took charge.
"Yeah," Usopp agreed.
"Okay! Let's land!" Luffy announced.
An annoyed Venus yanked Sanji up by his own clothes. "On your feet."
Zoro was about to haul up the anchor, when he saw something float up. "What's that?" On the shore, as everyone watched, a group of strange creatures resembling seals with turtle shells jumped up and looked ready to fight. "Turtles?"
"Aren't those seals?" Luffy asked.
"Kung Fu Dugongs!" Vivi exclaimed.
"They're kinda cute," Venus smiled a little.
""If you wanna come on shore, you'll have to beat me first!"" Chopper translated the leader's threat. ""Or else go back to the other shore, cowards!" Is what he says."
A confident Usopp stood on the railing. "I can't sit by quietly, when someone calls me a coward! Let's do it!" He leaped towards the Dugongs.
"Wait! Usopp-san!" Vivi called after him, and within seconds, he was defeated. "Kung Fu Dugongs are strong!"
"Usopp-kun!" Venus' eye widened in horror. She was wrong; they weren't cute at all!
"Stay back, Venus-san!" Vivi kept her from jumping in.
Luffy managed to easily defeat another. "One is winning over there!" Nami pointed out.
"Winning is bad too!" Vivi exclaimed.
Luffy watched as his opponent stood up, then to his confusion, bowed before him. "Huh?"
"It's a Kung Fu Dugong rule that if someone loses, they become the winner's pupil!" Vivi explained.
"That's very martial arts-ish," Zoro remarked.
The rest of the Dugongs gathered around Luffy. "The number of pupils just went up!" Vivi gawked.
"Alright, everyone! After me! Stance!" On Luffy's command, they all held out their right flippers. "No! Like this!" They copied his pose accurately. "Yeah! Now go like this!" They continued to follow his movements, as Venus began sneaking over. "That's it! Like this! Like this! Like this! Like this!"
"Usopp-kun?" She hauled him back to the ship while the Dugongs were distracted.
"Alright! Let's set out for Yuba!" Luffy announced.
"Hold on, now!" Zoro noticed them all lined up behind him in groups. "Are you bringing them with us?!"
"You can't, Luffy!" Nami scolded.
"The Dugongs can't cross the desert," Vivi said more gently.
Their hearts swelled when two of them hugged Luffy's legs, like they were begging him not to leave. 'So cute...' They turned away to talk privately. "I don't know why, but I feel like we're doing something very sad."
"Me too," Vivi agreed, "What should we do?"
"I know!" Chopper chimed in, and began sniffing everyone's bags. "Let's see here..."
"What're you doing?" Sanji asked.
"Here!" Chopper held out a chicken leg to the Dugongs. "You can have this! So stay here, okay?" He screamed in terror when they crowded right to him, and he began getting carried away. "Help!"
"Chopper!" Usopp exclaimed in concern.
Before long, after an attempted theft on Luffy's part, the crew made their leave, with the Dugongs waving in farewell. "See ya!" He waved back, while walking backwards.
"Hey now, Luffy!" Nami glared. "Do you understand the current situation?!"
"They said they were coming with me, so why couldn't we let them?"
"We couldn't go to any city with that big of a group! You're so dumb! Honestly! We would've been in big trouble, had Chopper not persuaded them!"
"Yeah!" Chopper agreed. "They kept saying, "We'll accompany you!" They really would've come, if we hadn't given them food!"
"Sheesh!" Sanji griped. "Thanks to you, our food supply's gotten a lot smaller!"
"He knows how to cause trouble," Ace remarked.
"That's for sure!" Suddenly, Vivi stopped at the top of a dune, with Zoro, Usopp, and Venus catching up. Before them was a city that seemed to have been overtaken by a sandstorm. "What's this, Vivi-chan?" Sanji asked.
"Is this the town of Yuba?" Luffy added.
"No..." Vivi replied, "This is Erumalu. It used to be known as the City of Green."
Luffy looked on curiously. "City of Green?"
Vivi turned to the group with a serious face. "The sight of this town explains everything. What the Baroque Works organization has done to this country. What the people of Alabasta are going through."
"Wow!" Luffy exclaimed in awe at their surroundings, as they trekked on. There was merely dried-out trees, and buildings peeking out of the sand. "There's nothing here at all!"
"Yes," Vivi agreed, "It's a ghost town now, but up until just recently, it was a thriving city full of greenery!"
Zoro lightly kicked a tree trunk, and small pieces broke off. "This place was?"
"Rain was always scarce, but even so, the city was able to manage by saving every last drop of rainwater it could. But for three years now, not a single drop of rain has fallen in any part of this country."
"For three years?!" Sanji asked in shock.
"That long?!" Chopper added.
"But even without rain, what about the river we just crossed?" Zoro pointed out.
"Yeah!" Usopp agreed. "Couldn't they just pipe water in from that big river?"
"The answer to that is up ahead," Vivi replied, and they kept walking, "Never in the thousands of years of Alabasta's history has the rain stopped completely. But there was one place where the rain fell more than usual: Alubarna, the capital. The city with the king's palace. The people called it the King's Miracle; until what happened that day, at least."
"Dance Powder?!" Nami guessed in surprise.
"You've heard of it?" Luffy asked her.
"Yes. It's also known as Rain-Summoning Powder."
"Rain-summoning?" Chopper asked.
"I'd only heard stories about it, but a researcher in a country where it doesn't rain created it. By creating a misty smoke from it, and letting it rise into the sky, you can artificially cause it to rain. That's what Dance Powder is."
"That does sound like a miracle," Venus remarked.
Luffy suddenly pounded his fist in his palm. "Oh! I get it! You mean that mystery powder! I ate some a while back! It tastes really bad!"
"It isn't food," Nami sneered, as she passed by him.
"It's for making rain," Zoro followed her.
"What?!" Luffy exclaimed in frustration. "You think I'm lying, don't you?! Hey, you!"
"Hold on!" Usopp chimed in over the captain's fussing. "Venus-chan had a point earlier. Wouldn't something like that be perfect for this country?"
"As the name suggests, the country that developed Dance Powder was almost happy enough to dance at first. But there was a big catch: the neighboring country had a drought. Understand? Dance Powder quickly and artificially matures clouds that would normally grow into rain clouds further downwind, and causes them to rain. So-"
"Oh, I get it!" Usopp cut in. "It steals rain that would've normally gone to a neighboring country!"
"Eventually, war broke out between the two countries, and many lives were lost as a result," Nami continued, "Ever since, the World Government has put a worldwide ban on the production, and possession of Dance Powder."
"Powder that can bring both happiness and dread when used," Usopp remarked.
"When all that Dance Powder was brought into the port town, Alabasta was in the middle of a strange weather phenomenon where rain fell nowhere but in the town where the king lived."
"Hold on, Vivi!" Luffy angrily interrupted. "That means your dad is the bad guy here!"
"You idiot!" Sanji bonked him with a heel to the head, and kept at it. "He was framed! Vivi-chan's father would never do any such thing! Never... never..."
"Of course, my father had nothing to do with it, but at around the same time, a massive amount of Dance Powder was found inside the palace."
"They even had people working inside the palace?" Zoro asked.
"What's this road, Vivi-chan?" Sanji noticed a visible path before them.
"This was a canal that used to bring water in from the Sandora River." The crew were surprised at that. "Someone destroyed this canal too. With its canal gone, the City of Green could no longer secure water. As if praying, the people continued to wait, but rain never came." Chopper dropped a pebble down a well, but there was a thump rather than a splash. "Ever since the Dance Powder incident, distrust in the king grows daily."
"And it's all how Crocodile planned, huh?" Zoro guessed.
"And then the fighting finally began. To escape the fighting, the exhausted people abandoned the city, and left for other oases in search of water." Vivi suddenly stopped walking. "And then... the City of Green withered away."
After some silence, as a stronger breeze blew by, everyone was on alert at a strange sound. "Huh? Is that someone's voice?!" Nami exclaimed.
"Is it the rebel army?!" Chopper asked.
"Don't tell me Baroque Works has been following us!" Usopp glared.
Everyone waited, ready to fight, but no one came out. "No, it's just wind," Ace said.
"It has to be someone's voice!" Luffy insisted.
"It's coming from all directions!" Usopp looked every which way cautiously. "What do we do, big brother?!"
"There's no danger. It's just wind blowing across the town, and echoing off old buildings."
"What if it's a ghost?" Venus asked around, with too much interest.
"Don't say that!" Nami scolded.
Vivi listened carefully, as her hood blew off her head. "It's as if... it's as if the city of Erumalu is crying."
Suddenly, a small tornado formed, and was heading right for them. "Here it comes!" Before they could move, the tornado blew right through them.
"Hold on, Venus-chan!" Usopp held her close protectively, as she pulled her hood down with one hand, and kept Chopper safe with the other. They braced through the whole thing, as Luffy noticed something unusual: darker trails of sand. The small storm then ended as soon it it began, so they were able to relax. "Whoa, what was with that wind?" Usopp wondered aloud.
"It's like it came out of nowhere," Venus added, as Chopper jumped out of her arms.
Luffy turned, and saw a man laying on the ground. "Someone collapsed!" Nami pointed out, as he made an urgent beeline.
"There are still people in this city?!" Vivi exclaimed. Everyone followed the captain, but they soon stopped; it was a long-withered skeleton in a cloak. She dropped to her knees, and softly touched the skull. "What did my father... what did the citizens of this country ever do? These people have worked so hard to live, being natives of a desert island who are forced to fight with nature. Yet he destroyed their lives!" She started to cry, now doubting her father. "What gives him the right to do that?! What?!" Luffy, Usopp, and Sanji approached an abandoned temple. "All the while, as one of the Seven Warlords, he pretends to be a hero of the people! No one realizes he's deceiving the entire country! I..." She was oblivious to a now angry Luffy drawing his fist back. "Can't let him get away with this!" He suddenly punched a hole through the wall, sending the temple crumbling.
The rest turned to see it falling to the ground. "Geez, you're such kids," Zoro griped. As Ace helped Vivi bury the poor soul, topping the makeshift grave with a branch, the trio came marching back.
"Vivi! Let's get moving!" Luffy ordered, and cracked his shoulder. "I'm itching to do this now!" Venus and the boys followed him, as he started walking again.
"Let's go to Yuba!" Vivi turned to Zoro and Nami.
"That's where the rebel army is, right?" The former asked.
The princess stood straight in determination. "Yes. I'm going to persuade their leader to stop the rebellion."
Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Persuade?"
"All of Alabasta's calamities are Crocodile's doing! I'm going to tell him the truth, and have him stop the pointless shedding of blood!"
"Got it." With that, Zoro went to catch up with the rest.
Vivi looked back at the grave, then followed the crew deeper into the desert.
(A/N: The quest continues! You know the disclaimer.)