(Bellamy POV)
"Why, if this isn't the ugliest mug I've ever seen!"

"Ever looked in the mirror recently?" I shoot back causing Urouge's crew to bristle.

"You insulting me, Hyena?" I am once more reminded of how ludicrously big Urouge actually is if he's standing upright. Moreso when he cheats using his devil fruit ability. "Pray I misunderstood you."

"If you need a doctor, I can provide one." We're all the same human race, but why are so many individuals in one piece so big? I mean sure, Urouge isn't a homo sapiens sapiens but Doffy? The Admirals or Garp? "I hear senility can set in early these days."

"Such arrogance! Do you not fear divine retribution?" Urouge queries, shoving his face into my private bubble. "Do you not fear god?"

"We killed a god and had him for breakfast. You tell me." I reply, standing my ground. "And get your stinking breath out of my face."

He reels back as if struck, his expression shifting into one of grave affront. "My breath does not stink! I use mint mouthwash every morning!"

"In that case, you may want to change your supplier." I wave a hand in front of my face in an exaggerated manner to disperse whatever vapors he may have left…even if they are very minty fresh.

"Can you handle the consequences of your words, Hyena? I promise you, it won't be pretty." He practically growls, slamming his pillar down for emphasis.

"Oh, it won't be pretty alright." In response, I transform my right arm, which seems to be a signal for our respective crews to simultaneously take one big step back. I'm going to have to discipline them later. How dare they abandon their captain in a time of crisis? "In fact, I am making it my personal mission to see you puking your guts out."

"Big words for a little man." His crew had been going increasingly green as our conversation progressed with some silently gasping for air, the thick tension clogging their airways. I imagine that my crew didn't look that different. "But do you have what it takes?"

"More than enough to take down a blown-up pufferfish."

"Oh, you did not just go there." he says, pointing a finger in my direction.

"I did. What are you going to do about it?" The answer is immediate and decisive.

"Drink you under the table, pipsqueak."

"You will try."

"Challenge accepted." A smile bisects Urouge's face from ear to ear, rendering his visage even more terrifying than it normally is. Then he has turned back to his crew and announces "You heard the midget, let's drink!"

And with that, all the tension vanishes into thin air as both crews begin preparations for an impromptu party. Logs are either cut down or otherwise toppled for seating arrangements, bits and pieces arranged into a great bonfire upon which to roast newly hunted game. Barrels upon barrels of booze is unloaded from our holds and cracked open in record time while Hewitt gets to work on the hors d'oevres.

It's after several rounds of drinks have passed that Urouge returns to our earlier conversation.

"Something's been niggling the back of me head."

"I'll bite. What?"

"When did you kill a tenryubito?" Silly Urouge, it's Enel I was talking about.

At first, my fellow captain had looked like I brained him with a poleaxe upon hearing of Enel's fate. I mean, I probably would too if I heard that my worst enemy had been killed and my revenge had been stolen from me.

But that didn't last for long, because once he found out that Enel's power had been inherited by his first cousin once removed, Urouge just broke down in peals of laughter. By that I mean that the big man collapsed to the ground, clutching his stomach, and rolling all around the camp. It got so bad at one time, that the only reason he didn't go wheeling full speed into the fire had been due to the combined efforts of our crews. Even then, he completely lost control of his size and flattened Rivers, who had not been expecting the mass of muscle thundering towards him to turn into a much bigger mass of muscle.

"Huhuhuhu…huhuhu…hu…" Eventually the uncontrollable chortling subsided into more manageable sniggering. Urouge didn't seem to care that Aisa was giving him odd looks as he wiped his eyes with his sandy hands, one of his clerics rapidly putting out the last embers on his back. "That just made my day. My thanks, Hyena."

"You should be." I respond dryly, before digging through my pockets to hand him a letter. "Your uncle sends his regards."

"So that's how you knew my childhood nickname."

"What do you mean?"

"Pufferfish. Some of the kids back home saw me practicing my abilities and the name stuck." Urouge explains before his eyes narrow into slits. "You didn't know. I look like a pufferfish to you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I smile guiltlessly at him, sugary sweet and oblivious, almost exaggerated in its innocence. For some reason Urouge didn't seem to believe me.

"Why you little…"

"Are you really my uncle?" At some time in our conversation, Aisa had wandered over to us, holding a skewer of meat in each hand and one in her mouth, around which she articulated her words clear as day.

She looked adorable, something upon which Urouge clearly agreed judging by his transformation from a pirate captain to a doting uncle. "Yes, I am. You look a lot like your mother when she was young. Just as adorable." Getting down from our log, he kneels in front of Aisa and spreads his arms out in an open invitation. "Come here and give uncle Urouge a hug…hmmph?"

Not sure why, but Aisa didn't give the man his hug. Maybe it was because this middled aged man was making cooing faces at her, but she silenced the dangerous pirate by stuffing one of her skewers into his mouth.

"I'm not adorable." One of these days Aisa is going to learn that just because you say something isn't true doesn't make it untrue. And with her indignantly glaring up at him, hands on her waist and cheeks bulging with meat like a giant chipmunk, Urouge was unprepared to be ground zero for the explosion of adorableness. Critical hit. HMS Urouge sunk.

"Thank you, Aisa." I say when I'm handed my own skewer of freshy grilled meat, some esoteric assortment of the local fauna. Hewitt really did some good work with these, I reflect as I bite through the well-done outer layer into the juiciness within. "Tastes nice, doesn't it?"

My crew mascot doesn't reply beyond a short nod, much to engrossed in munching her way through her food. Still, she doesn't protest when I start absentmindedly giving her head pats. Protest arises from a different corner.

"Oi, how come the midget gets to give you head pats and I don't get a hug?"

But his protest is brutally crushed near immediately.

"Bellamy is pretty."

Then again, I don't have time to enjoy the view of Urouge turning into a white shade…

…because damn if my masculinity didn't get caught in the crossfire.

"Good morning, pretty boy."

"Can't you just call me a midget again, like you used to?" I did not whine. Big bad pirate captains do not whine…but I will admit that I groaned. My hangover was killing me. Urouge, curse his liver, was looking fine and dandy despite having been the first one to collapse last night.

"Nope, can't do that, pretty boy. My honorary niece called you pretty, so don't have a choice you see?"

"Oh, shut up you big oaf."

"And what if I won't? Pretty. Boy?"

"I will make you, you fricking fat gorilla." Hangover or not, I have enough control over my faculties to punch the living daylights out of him. Can you imagine my next bounty poster reading "Pretty Boy Bellamy"? It would be a PR disaster of catastrophic proportions. I'd never live that down.

"Well, come on then." Urouge grins, making a come-hither movement with his index finger.

"Gladly." Spring Hopp…SMACK

Before Urouge and I can settle our argument like men, we are dishonorably ambushed and laid out flat on the sandy beach by two precise whacks to the back of our heads via a rolled up newspaper.

"Do you two have to do this again?"

In the face of a common enemy, an accord was struck and a temporary truce established.

"But Muret, he called me a pretty boy!"

"Your captain called me a fat gorilla!"

But our fledgling resistance was ground into dust with utter ruthlessness, wholly unfitting for a doctor.

"And both of you puked all over my freshly polished floor." If Muret's goal was to make us feel like little children being scolded by their mother, she succeeded tremendously. "Do you know how hard Funkfreed had to work until the sickbay looked clean again? All night and the place still stinks!"

Funkfreed, the ungrateful traitor that he is, has seemingly forgotten who actually rescued him from Spandam's filthy clutches and granted him a new home and a daily supply of fruit. Hence, he doesn't make a sound in my defense, instead choosing to make mournful eyes at us and trumpet pitifully when Muret pulls him out to shove him into our faces.

"Look at how tired he is! Hours scrubbing…" I tuned out her tirade, her words washing over me like waves over the rocks on the beach. Zen. Inner peace.

"…you and your excessive competitiveness…" There is no war in Basing-Se. There is no war in Basing-Se.

"…and I have to keep everyone alive because I'm the only person on this stupid island with any common sense…" Urouge is starting to go slack-eyed from where he is kneeling next to me, his raised arms inching lower by the minute.

"…and then you puke on my floor!" Muret punctuates her statement with another whack, this time only for Urouge which prompts him to return his arms to their raised position. "Try and act like adult men. You're captains!"

"Yes, Muret." "Yes, ma'am."

WHACK!

"How dare you call me old! I'm only twenty five!"

"Your crew is an odd bunch."

"The best kind of odd there is." I answer, my gaze locked on the bright moon in the night sky. The stars aren't visible due to the party bonfire still burning brightly, our crews having rebuilt and reignited it several times over the last day well into the night. "We're going places."

"That I can believe." He acquiesces, making me blink. In response, Urouge joins me, lying down beside me in the sand and placing his arms behind his head. "What? You're obviously insane so either you're going to die young or make it big."

"What do you mean, we're insane? I'll have you know that we're all perfectly normal, thank you very much."

"You rode the knock up stream to find an island floating in the clouds which science didn't believe could exist." He points out. "That qualifies."

"Touché." It did sound bad when someone put it that way. Doesn't change the fact I didn't have a choice at the time. "Still better than challenging a god."

"I never claimed to be sane, now did I?" he says, and we both begin to chuckle. It's nice. "Where are you heading after this?"

"Sabaody again to finish some business before going to Marineford."

"For Firefist's execution?"

"It's going to be the biggest spectacle of the decade." And quite possibly the best opportunity to harvest some devil fruits. There are going to be thousands of people fighting and dying in a very small area, many of them with devil fruit abilities. Even if the probability of each fruit reincarnating in a particular fruit is tiny, if there are a lot of devil fruits reincarnating near simultaneously and the largest concentration of fruit in a hundred-mile radius is the hold of my ship? I like my odds.

"And after that?"

"Stay in paradise and train our asses off."

"Not heading to the New World?" Urouge asks, halfway sitting up.

"We won't survive the way we are now. And neither will you." I sigh. Urouge looks like he wants to protest so I keep going before he can. "Could you have beaten the robot Kuma on your own?"

It takes a while and Urouge is visibly struggling with his pride, but in the end, he bows to the truth. "No."

"The New World is filled with dangers far outstripping the robot. It not only the navy's newest weapon but most of the pirates and marines over on that side are an order of magnitude stronger than what we are used to. Here? We're the big fish. In the New World? We're prey."

"And training in paradise is going to help?" Urouge looks at me quizzically. "How will you grow without challenging yourself?"

"Just because one is in paradise doesn't mean that one can't prepare for the new world. Rather, committing effective suicide is going to be counter productive to our survival. It's better to prepare well and gather allies before attempting such a venture."

"Allies?"

"Aye. I'm hoping to bring down Doflamingo within a few years, but I won't be able to do it on my own." I admit, making the big man shoot me a puzzled look.

"That's surprising. I thought you were his devoted underling?" That is always going to follow me around isn't it? The black mark on Bellamy's record. By this point, my answer is more or less standardized.

"Young me did stupid things. Older me is fixing things."

"And you want my help?"

"Aye." I was willing to offer quite a bit as well, not least among which was lessons in haki. Urouge would be an amazing ally to have, considering he was able to take down one of Big Mom's top three commanders, a powerhouse who would likely be more than a match for Doffy's top executives. But turns out I didn't need to make an offer.

"Then you shall have it." He states surprising me with the simplistic solution to my problem.

"…not that I'm not grateful, but why?"

"You killed Enel and freed my uncle's people." Urouge holds out a hand to me which I grasp before I'm pulled up to my feet. "For that you have my gratitude and my friendship."

In that case…I have no reason to refuse. Maintaining my hold on his hand, I give it a short squeeze.

"And you'll have mine. Allies?"

Urouge squeezes back.

"Allies."

Author's note:

And there we have it. First proper ally for Bellamy & Crew. Maybe it seemed a little too simple but I don't think the Urouge displayed in the show is a complicated man. Rather, he seems more straight forward. Plus the Shandians are a proud warrior culture so the sense of honour played a role as well.

Also, Bellamy is still unaware while Urouge thinks our SI is purposely not talking about it. But the misunderstandings should be cleared up soon-ish.

P.S. comments and discussions make me very happy.

P.P.S. it's exam season so chapters may be more sporadic for the next month.