Chapter 2: "Showdown with Captain Clown"

"Hey there! My name's Luffy!", the young man in a straw hat responded to Nami's question, a big grin now on his face. Shortly after, the red-haired guy to his left stepped forward and introduced himself as well with: "And my name's Natsu!".

After a few seconds of shock (and relief) at the sudden arrival of these two odd saviors, Nami recollected herself, put on her classic act of a deceptive smile and a thief's charm, and took the hand that Luffy extended to her in order to get back up on her feet.

As she did so, she could hear the three goons who Luffy and Natsu had knocked out with a single simultaneous blow begin to stir and get up as well, so as they began to recollect themselves, she looked dead at Luffy and said in a firm voice: "Wow, you guys both finally came! Thank you so much for coming to save me!", much to the confusion of Luffy and Natsu.

And as Nami had expected, the goons had completely fallen for it, and even as they got to their feet they were already holding their weapons again with angry grimaces on their faces. Realizing her plan had succeeded, Nami quickly shouted "I'll leave everything to you guys!", before sprinting off in the other direction as fast as she could.

Before Luffy and Natsu could question this, the three goons had already surrounded them.

"Forget the girl", one of them growled as they all brandished their weapons. "Her boss and his second-in-command are still here!"

Luffy and Natsu just stood there, still confused at the sudden turn of events but completely unintimidated by the 3 larger ruffians, when one of them took the first swipe at Luffy, yelling "This is for stealing Captain Buggy's map!"

Luffy casually dodged the attack by leaning backwards, but the wind from the sword caused his straw hat to be sent flying into the air. Luffy's eyes became widened with concern and surprise, and he quickly grabbed his trusty hat before angrily decking the thug in the schnoz.

"Don't you dare mess with my hat!", he growled as the other 2 guys stared at their fallen comrade in shock. However, this shock was soon replaced with an unfortunate realization as they suddenly saw Natsu dash forward, wide grin on his face and fist glowing with…fire!?

BAM!

The 2 goons were both sent flying across the street by Natsu's punch, although this time they maintained enough consciousness to weakly get back on their feet and run away in the other direction to their boss.

Natsu and Luffy watched them run off, and then Luffy quickly took his hat and looked it over to see that it hadn't actually been cut by the sword. Seeing no marks, Luffy once again regained his classic grin as he put the hat back on his head, before turning to Natsu and seeing that he also had a big grin on his face.

However, the two then turned to see both Nami grinning down at them while sitting up on the top perch of a nearby shop.

"Wow, you guys are really strong! I mean, you beat those guys bare-handed! And one of you even has fire powers!".

Luffy and Natsu just looked at her, not really affected by her praise of their powers, before Luffy asked: "Huh? Who are you anyways?".

"I'm Nami, and I'm a thief who only steals from other pirates? Wanna be partners?"

"Only steal from pirates?"

"Yep! I only steal from other pirates, so if the two of you wanna team up with me, we could make a whole lot of money!"

Natsu and Luffy looked at her, then at each other, before turning around and walking in the other direction.

"Nah", they both said in a casually bored tone as they began to go in the opposite direction.

A shocked Nami, who was clearly not expecting this answer, jumped off her perch and quickly caught up to them.

"Hang on a second! If you guys aren't interested in getting any money or valuables, what's up with that hat and that scarf?", she asked, gesturing at Luffy's Straw Hat and Natsu's scarf, the latter of which she was particularly interested in due to it appearing to have a rare and unique (and, in her eyes, possibly quite valuable) design.

Looking at both the hat and scarf with eyes mixed with both curiosity and greed, she reached her hands forward to touch them, only for their respective owners to both step backwards and exclaim: "This is our treasure!".

"Oh? Are they both valuable? When your hat almost got damaged, Luffy, you flipped out! Does your hat have jewels, Luffy? And is your scarf made from rare silk, Natsu? I've never seen anything like them!", Nami continued to greedily question them as they walked together down the empty street.

(Meanwhile, at the headquarters of a certain clown pirate…)

"You still couldn't catch the thief who stole my map of the Grand Line?!", an angered voice growled, its owner sitting on a large chair as his scared minions stood and quivered in fear in front of him.

"W-w-we were in the middle of searching, Captain Buggy!", one of the terrified minions pleaded as he trembled while hoping to avoid severe punishment for his failure.

"That map was our only way to go to the Grand Line and expand our business!", the captain growled.

"Y-You see boss, we just lost it by a tiny mistake! Some idiot just left the key in the cabinet's lock, that's all-GACK!"

The goon could only choke as a hand, seemingly void of any attaching hand, wrapped itself around his throat and lifted him into the air in front of his boss's seat. A grim smile curled on the captain's face as his unfortunate goon choked and coughed, begging for mercy through choked gasps as his comrades just watched in shock and fear.

The goon's fear soon turned to absolute dread and horror as he heard the captain bark out: "Bring the cannon!"

As the other goons quickly did so, the choking minion gasped for air, before loudly pleading for his life as tears ran down his face.

His words and tears proved to be in vain, however, as the men aimed the cannon at him and, after a hand gesture from their cannon, fired right at the poor fool, who let out one last scream as the cannonball blew him to bits.

BOOM!

After the explosion faded, the clown-faced pirate simply got up from his chair, turned around, and began walking away as he barked orders to his men:

"Recover the map! And take all the village's treasure too!"

His men all quickly nodded and ran away as fast as they could, having been shown the price of failure…

(In a simple nearby house…)

"So you guys got separated from your crew, huh?"

"Yep"

"I see. So aside from you two and your cat, how many people are in your crew?"

"One, maybe two if that Gray guy joins", Luffy casually replied as he and Natsu scarfed down some food that they'd found in the house.

"Anyways", Natsu said as he finished munching down his meal, "Is this your house, Nami?"

"Nah, I don't even know whose house this is. Everyone in the village is hiding in a nearby shelter, since they're all afraid of the Buggy Pirate Fleet"

Seeing Natsu and Luffy with confused faces, she explained.

"He's a pirate who is infamous around here, especially for his love of cannons. Once while he was staying in some village, a few kids made fun of his nose, so he blew up the entire village", she said to the two, with Natsu's face growing somewhat more serious than Luffy's upon hearing what Buggy did.

"Not to mention", she continued, "it's said that he's got a strange power. But anyways, my goal is to get a hundred million beri, and then use it to buy a certain village!"

"Buy a village?", Natsu asked in a rather confused voice.

"That's a lot of money you need to get", Luffy casually replied.

Nami responded to this by reaching into her bag and pulling out a rolled-up map.

"That's why I stole this baby! A map of the Grand Line! As soon as I nab some treasure from Buggy, I'm going to go to the Grand Line and steal even more money from some real big-shot pirates! Doesn't that sound appealing to you guys? I mean, I could really use your guys' strength!"

Luffy seemingly bypassed her question by asking: "By the way, are you a navigator?"

"Yeah, I've been able to navigate on the sea since I was a kid, why?"

"Awesome! I'm also gonna go to the Grand Line! So I want you to join our pirate crew and be our navigator!"

In an instant, Nami's demeanor changed from a cheerful if somewhat wary brightness to shock and anger.

"Wait, you guys are pirates?! No way I'm joining you! Forget I ever asked!", she yelled at the two, shocking both Straw Hats (and the cat).

In that moment, however, Nami had an idea, one that could help her get rid of these pirates and get Buggy off her back.

Taking a deep breath, Nami put on her smile again, before gently saying: "I'm sorry, I just have a bad history with pirates. But since you guys saved my life, let me at least cook you guys something before you go."

This made Luffy, Natsu, and Happy all smile and relax. Perfect.

"Let me just go wash my hands, and I'll cook you guys something I learned to make back home", Nami said in as sweet a tone as she could muster as she went to the bathroom, where she quickly looked through the cabinets until she found what she'd been looking for: sleeping pills.

Quickly making her way back to the dining room and kitchen while hiding the pills, she quickly got to work baking some fruit pastries with some fruits and baking ingredients from the house's cupboards, and made sure to grind up a large number of the sleeping pills (almost the entire canister, as Nami knew these guys would need a lot to go down) and add them to the recipe as she baked them. Fortunately, the pills had no smell for Natsu to pick up with his superhuman hearing (even though Nami had no idea about Natsu's ridiculous superhuman senses).

She finished making the fruit pastries after a few minutes, and divided it evenly before putting half of the dessert on each plate. She then gave one plate to Luffy and the other to Natsu, and gave Happy a cup of milk that had some crushed-up pills sprinkled into the drink. Natsu and Luffy basically inhaled the pastries while Happy gladly drank the sweet milk, none of them aware of the pills inside their food (especially since Natsu and Luffy swallowed the food without bothering to taste it, while Nami knew that the dominating basic taste of milk would hide any taste from the medicine).

In roughly 30 seconds, all 3 of the guys were sleeping like babies, much to Nami's glee. She quickly got some rope, tied the hands and legs of all 3 of them, and began dragging their bodies away from the village…

(Back at Buggy's base…)

"What do you mean you lost track of the thief who stole my map?! You three strong guys couldn't catch one scrawny person?!", Buggy roared at his men, who could only stammer as they all tried to explain their failure.

Buggy, in no mood for excuses, prepared to give them the same fate as his earlier victim, yelling "Die a painful death!" as his terrified men screamed.

However, before he could do anything else, one of his men called for his attention.

"Captain Buggy! The thief that stole our map and got away from us just came back on her own!".

"What?! She came here herself?! Why?!".

"I dunno, boss!".

"Well, whatever! Bring her in!".

This proved unnecessary, however, as the girl in question entered and appeared before Buggy on her own, with his men quickly becoming shocked at what the girl was carrying.

"No way!".

"It's…it's her boss and the other guy!".

"The ones who fell from the sky!".

True enough, Nami was dragging the two unconscious boys who had beaten up three of Buggy's men, both of them tied up with plenty of rope and barely starting to stir back into consciousness. Nami dragged them to the center of the floor, before directly addressing the intrigued Buggy:

"That's right, Buggy! I captured the thieves and brought your map back, too!".

Luffy and Natsu, now fully awake, angrily turned their heads towards Nami and shouted: "You tricked us!", although all Nami did in response was playfully stick her tongue out at them while holding Happy (who was now awake and struggling in his rope bonds) with one arm.

"I see, so you're just gonna return the map to me like that? But why would you do this?", Buggy curiously asked.

"Well you see, I got into a fight with my boss here, so I got tired of him! Please let me join your crew instead, Captain Buggy?".

Buggy was initially dumbfounded by this, before getting over it and replying: "Ha! So you got tired of him, huh girl? That's pretty funny! Very well, Nami! Welcome to my crew!".

Nami smiled, already making plans in her head to swipe Buggy's map of the Grand Line and run away as soon as she got the chance, while Luffy, Natsu, and Happy were thrown into separate cages as they all grumbled about how Nami had betrayed them.

Meanwhile, Zoro and Gray had just arrived on the island's port, courtesy of Gray's ice path letting them run the remaining distance across the sea.

Looking around the abandoned village, all they saw were some goons who unbeknownst to them were in Buggy's crew, although when they saw the two guys they quickly attacked.

Zoro effortlessly cut one of them down with a casual sword swipe, while Gray easily dodged attacks from the other two, before creating a hammer of ice that he held with both hands and swung as he yelled: "Ice Make: Hammer!", sending the other 2 goons flying into an abandoned building.

The two of them then looked around the area again before realizing that no one else was there.

"No one's here", Gray remarked, "That dumbass Natsu and your idiot friend must've gotten into trouble already".

"Then I guess we better find them", Zoro responded in a rather bored tone as he sheathed his swords.

Back at Buggy's headquarters, all of his men were drinking and partying as they celebrated the return of their boss's map of the Grand Line, drinking and partying to their hearts' content. Nami herself was apparently quick to adapt to being in a new crew, as she was already in a drinking contest with some of Buggy's men (and easily outdrinking them all). As her drinking opponents fell one by one, Nami let out a hearty laugh of victory, all the while plotting her next moves.

"Perfect, if they all just continue drinking like this then stealing their treasure will be a sinch!", she smugly thought to herself as she wiped some booze off the bottom of her lip, "Man, pirates are such simple-headed morons!"

As this was going on, Luffy, Natsu, and Happy were all sitting in their cages, watching the party go on. While all three of them were still upset at what Nami had done, they all couldn't help but enjoy watching the pirates partying around them and clearly enjoying themselves. This is what they thought being a pirate should be like.

However, their thoughts were interrupted by Nami walking over to their cages.

"How's it going, 'Captain'?", she smugly asked Luffy, who was now biting on his cages.

"Lemme out of here!", he angrily replied.

"Yeah!", Natsu shouted, "And we're hungry too!"

Nami chuckled. "What makes you think I care if you starve?"

"Because I can smell whether someone is good or bad, and you're not a bad person", Natsu casually replied with total confidence, a big goofy grin on his face.

Nami gritted her teeth, not understanding at all what Natsu meant by "smelling" whether she was a good person or not and also not understanding why Natsu believed her to be a good person when she'd just double-crossed them. And yet, mere minutes later, Natsu and Luffy were chewing and swallowing down some of their captors' food that Nami had taken from a nearby table.

"Wow Natsu, she is nice", Luffy said in a muffled voice due to the food he was still eating, before swallowing it and turning his head to face Nami, "I guess I will let you join our crew!"

"I'm not gonna join your crew, you moron!", she angrily shouted before calming herself and smiling. "But don't worry, if my plans work smoothly, I'll be able to unlock this cage and let you escape!"

Before she could continue any further, the laughter of a certain clown pirate rang out behind her, Buggy looming over both her and the cage.

"BWAHAHA! Looks like you guys got yourselves a pretty good follower!"

"What are you talking about? She's not our follower!", Luffy and Natsu both replied.

"Yeah, yeah. Figured you guys would say something like that since you just got betrayed. But anyways, even though I got my map back, I can't just let someone stealing from me slide! Get the Buggy Cannon-Ball ready, boys!"

Buggy's men quickly pushed a cannon forward, before getting a single cannonball that had a pirate sigil with the same nose as Buggy himself. Putting the cannonball within the cannon, they aimed it at a row of multiple houses all lined up next to each other. Upon Buggy yelling "FIRE!", the cannon let out a deafening "BOOM!", the cannonball's power and trajectory flattening at least a half-dozen houses.

As Nami, Luffy, Natsu and Happy stared in shock at the explosion, Buggy simply cackled at the display of his weapon.

"Gyahahaha! This weapon's power is so great that it could wipe out this entire pathetic village in one shot! With this and the powers I've gained from my Devil Fruit, my success at the Grand Line is assured!".

Turning the weapon towards the cage, Buggy went up to Nami, eyes full of cheerful malice.

"Now Nami, just shoot the cannon and swear your loyalty to rule the world with me! Get rid of your old boss once and for all!".

Eyes widened, Nami stood there in shock at Buggy's words.

"Kill them…all? Me?"

As Buggy's demand truly set into her mind, she slowly turned back to face Buggy with a nervous grin on her face, trembling all the while.

"I don't think that's necessary, Captain Buggy! Let's just ignore them and drink instead-"

"Kill them".

Upon hearing this response, Nami froze up, unreactive even as Buggy's men jeered and urged Nami to fire the cannon, their captain joining them in the bloodthirsty chanting.

If I don't shoot these guys right now, then I'll definitely die! But…if I kill them, even if they are pirates, then I'll be no better than them…

"Nami!", she heard Buggy yell, snapping her out of her thoughts, "Stop spoiling the fun, just light the cannon and kill them!".

As Nami stood there trembling in shock, she heard Luffy, who despite the circumstances was smiling, say something to her.

"You're trembling all over. You lack the strong oath that every pirate swears to have, and you lack that strength!".

"R-really? Is that oath about killing people like insects?"

"No, it's about the idea of being willing to put your own life on the line!"

Before Nami could react to this statement, one of Buggy's men came up to where she was standing with the cannon, matchbox in hand.

"What's the matter, new girl?", he irritatedly asked as he prepared to fire the cannon, "Don't ya know how to fire a cannon? It's easy, just light the fuse and-".

THWAK!

The man fell hard to the ground, his head having a massive bump from where Nami struck it with a black staff that she had apparently pulled out and put together from a special pocket on the side of her leg. Everyone watched with shock as the goon collapsed unconscious on the ground, even Luffy, Natsu, and Happy, while Nami just stood over the goon she'd knocked out, breathing heavily as she was hit by the gravity of what she'd just done.

Damn, I couldn't help myself!

"YOU TRAITOR! AND JUST AFTER I WELCOMED YOU INTO MY CREW!", an enraged Buggy roared.

"Woah! So you're gonna save us after all?!", the 3 caged prisoners all asked Nami.

"Don't be stupid! I just got carried away… I don't want to be a low-down murderer like all of you! Pirates like you took away someone dear to me…I'll never become what I hate!"

"Oh, so that's why you hate pirates…", Luffy, Natsu, and Happy all softly said, until they realized that the fuse to the cannon was lit, causing their eyes to widen as they yelled "HEY, THE FUSE IS LIT!".

However, Natsu quickly got an idea, and with a grin on his face he deeply inhaled until the spark of fire on the fuse as well as the flame on the candle used to light the fuse were sucked into his mouth. His grin widening, Natsu suddenly heated his body up to dissolve the ropes on himself, Luffy, and Happy, before setting his right leg on fire and effortlessly destroying the metal bars of the cell with a single kick.

"I'M ALL FIRED UP!", Natsu cheerfully roared as the last bits of grogginess from Nami drugging his food finally wore off.

With his large grin reappearing on his face, Luffy quickly exited the cage alongside Natsu and leapt to his feet, while Natsu's body emitted a powerful and incredibly hot aura as his body became surrounded in flames. The heat coming off of Natsu was so strong that a shocked Nami, as well as the goons who were about to attack Nami all at once for her treachery and even Buggy himself, were all forced to stop and raise their hands in an attempt to block the heat and light emanating from behind Nami.

Realizing the goons were blinded and unable to defend themselves (although it was obvious that none of them would've stood a chance even if they could fight back) , Luffy and Natsu prepared to deck all the goons with one combined move, when suddenly a massive sword made of ice slammed down from the sky and sent one half of Buggy's men flying, while the other half was sent flying by a 3-sword slash that hit them before they could even perceive it.

"Ice-Make: Longsword!"

"Onigiri!"

As the minions were sent flying, screaming in pain and badly injured by their attackers, Nami, Buggy, Luffy, Natsu, and Happy all turned towards the 2 perpetrators: Zoro and Gray.

"Jeez Natsu", the latter casually remarked with a fair bit of smugness in his voice, "you really had trouble with these guys?".

Natsu, now enraged at Gray's petty remark, got up in his face and yelled: "WELL EXCUSE ME, MR. NAKED, BUT I WAS DRUGGED SO I COULDN'T MOVE! EVEN WITH THE DRUG I'M STILL FIVE TIMES STRONGER THAN YOU!"

While Gray and Natsu were arguing, Luffy happily greeted his first mate.

"Hey, Zoro! Glad you could make it!".

"Yeah, and a good thing too, since you were busy goofing off and making a mess from the looks of it. Tch, dumbass!".

Luffy's casual conversation with the famous "Pirate Hunter" shocked Buggy and his goons (as well as Nami), as they all wondered how Luffy knew and apparently became the superior of such a renowned bounty hunter and swordsman.

However, while Nami and Buggy's battered minions pondered this, Buggy himself confidently went up to Zoro, unafraid despite having seen the swordsman decimate his men.

"So you're the famous Roronoa Zoro, huh? I bet you came here to capture me!"

"I gave up pirate hunting, I have no interest in a clown like you!"

"Really? Well, I'm still very much interested in you. After all, killing you will be a nice feather in my cap".

"Careful, before you end up with all your feathers plucked!"

Buggy, ignoring Zoro's warning, quickly got out two knives and lunged at Zoro as his men cheered him on and told him to cut Zoro to pieces.

"Give me all you've got, 'Pirate Hunter', because I'm about to get a look at your blood!"

"You asked for it, clown!"

SLASH!

Plop.

And just like that, the chunks of Buggy's body, perfectly sliced up by Zoro's blades, unceremoniously fell to the ground.

"Hey, that was too easy!", Luffy and Natsu yelled.

"No…no way", an utterly shocked Nami quietly said in response to seeing Buggy's body parts lying on the ground. Meanwhile, Gray was simply smirking, impressed at Zoro's capabilities and satisfied that this asshole clown was no longer an issue.

"Tch, what a disappointment", an unsatisfied Zoro remarked while looking at the pieces of Buggy's body.

However, he and the other 5 all noticed Buggy's men just standing there, looking at both them and Buggy's sliced-up body and not even bothering to either attack or flee. But what made it weird was that they were…laughing.

"What's with those guys?", Nami quietly pondered. "Their captain gets killed in front of them and they just laugh about it?"

As Nami and the Straw Hats looked at them, their laughter only got louder, to the point where they were roaring and howling with laughter, much to the confusion of the six individuals watching them.

"Very funny", an irritated Zoro remarked, "Now get lost before I get cranky."

"Those guys are creepy", Luffy and Happy both said, to which Natsu and Gray both nodded.

Suddenly, Happy saw something that made his eyes widen, and before anyone could react he used his wings to launch himself at something behind Zoro and tackle it to the ground.

When a shocked Zoro turned around, he and the others saw that Happy was pinning down a floating hand that had a knife in it.

Buggy's knife.

"Nice one, Happy! But how the heck is that hand still moving?", Natsu asked.

"Damn cat! You ruined my special surprise!", the Straw Hats heard Buggy shout, and they all turned to see Buggy standing up and fit as a fiddle (minus the arm that Happy had pinned down), as if Zoro slicing his body into large chunks had never happened.

"But anyways, you slicing me up did nothing, Roronoa Zoro!", Buggy boasted as his right arm escaped Happy's grasp and flew back to its owner, seamlessly connecting to his arm without any remaining sign of having been cut off. "I have the Chop-Chop Fruit! So slice and dice me all you want, Pirate Hunter, but it won't kill me! I'm a chop-chop man!".

"Chop-chop man? That guy's a freak!", Natsu and Luffy both exclaimed.

"Gotta say, trying to stab a guy in the back was a pretty dirty trick, Captain Big Nose", Gray remarked, which immediately caused Nami and all of Buggy's goons to freeze in panic as Buggy snapped his head in Gray's direction.

"BIG NOSE?! YOU DARE TO CALL ME BIG NOSE?!", Buggy roared as he threw his knife at Gray. The black-haired cryomancer raised his ice sword to block the knife, only for Natsu to quickly move in front of the knife and raise his hand to block it. At first, it seemed that he had let the knife stab his arm since it appeared that the blade had sunk into his flesh, until everyone noticed that the knife had melted due to the heat of his skin.

"Heat hot enough to just melt metal like that? What kind of powers do these guys have?", Nami once again quietly asked no one in particular.

"I had that, Flame-Breath!", an angry Gray said, unhappy at Natsu's intervention.

"Sure you did, Ice-Undies", Natsu smugly said, before turning to face Buggy.

"We're gonna clobber ya!", he and a smiling Luffy said to the shocked but angry clown pirate.

"Heh heh, clobber me? HAHAHA! Don't make me laugh! You lot are all going to die!", Buggy grimly cackled as his detached hands quickly grabbed the match and matchbox used earlier by a goon to light the cannon's fuse, before lighting said fuse himself.

Luckily, Zoro saw this and quickly dashed towards the cannon's front, before using his incredible strength to push it up and over so that it was pointed at Buggy and his crew instead of Luffy.

The eyes of Buggy and his crew all immediately widened as their faces went pale with shock and fear.

"IT'S POINTED AT US!", they all screamed.

"AND IT HAS MY BUGGY BALL!", their big-nosed captain screamed as the cannon got ready to fire the cannonball that literally had his name on it.

BOOOOOOM!

Dozens of Buggy's men were sent flying by the blast, with tens of empty houses being utterly flattened by the power of the Buggy Ball. Even those who had avoided the cannon shot, such as Buggy himself (who had managed to duck his own weapon in the nick of time), were utterly blinded by the smoke, giving Luffy's group time to regroup.

"Now's our chance to get out of here!", Gray remarked, right before his and Zoro's eyes both fell on Nami.

"Who's she, by the way?", Zoro asked his ever-grinning captain.

"She's our new navigator!"

"Are you nuts?! I just said why I never want to work for pirates!", Nami angrily shouted.

However, the Straw Hats then heard Buggy coughing as he cleared the smoke blocking his vision.

"YOU GUYS AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE! NO ONE MAKES A FOOL OUT OF ME!", he roared as he and his men, who still numbered over half a hundred despite the dozens taken out by the cannon, got ready to fight once more. "I will admit you guys aren't common thieves, so NO MORE CLOWNING AROUND! CONSIDER THIS A DECLARATION OF WAR!".

At this, Nami began to sweat in fear, yet Luffy, Zoro, Natsu and Gray all simply smiled and got ready to fight.

As dozens of knife-wielding goons ran at them, the four pirates immediately jumped into the fray and let loose on the small army.

"Gum Gum Whip!"

"Tatsumaki!"

"Fire Dragon Roar!"

"Ice-Make: Lance!"

As magical circles fired blasts of ice and fire, while Luffy and Zoro casually demolished scores of thugs at a time, Nami just watched the 4 of them curb-stomp an entire pirate crew with an enthusiastic demeanor more fitting for a fun game of sports than for a fight where one was facing dozens of men trying to kill them.

And their powers were beyond anything Nami had ever seen! Luffy's rubber abilities making Nami realize that he too possessed a Devil Fruit just like Buggy, although she wasn't sure what Natsu and Gray had that gave them such powers. Natsu's uttering of the phrase "Fire Dragon" with each attack seemed to imply that the origin of his powers was dragon-related, although Nami doubted that such creatures actually existed.

"Pretty awesome, aren't they?"

Nami was pulled out of her thoughts at the question, turning her head to the right only to see Happy hovering right next to her shoulder. Even though she was unable to answer his question, she did note something that she had apparently overlooked when she'd first met him.

"First off, how the heck are you able to talk? Animals can't talk."

"I dunno, I've just always been like this."

"Huh. Second, how do you have wings?"

"Oh, I've always had those, ever since I first hatched from an egg. Natsu used to think it was because I'm a dragon, just like the one who raised him!"

Nami paused for a second, now having even more questions than before but realizing that her mind couldn't handle any more of Happy's answers.

"W-Whatever. Anyways, for a pirate your friend Natsu sure is weird, with that whole 'smelling that I'm a good person' nonsense."

"Oh, that's something Natsu's always been able to do, since he's always had super senses due to his dragon powers! And to be honest, we only decided to join Luffy's crew a short bit before Natsu heard you shout for help with his super hearing! We wouldn't have accepted, but Natsu sensed that Luffy was a good guy too who just wanted to explore the world! So if he trusts you, I trust you!"

Happy's incredibly casual remarks about Natsu sensing the good in her (though how he could sense the potential for good in her was a mystery), as well as him explaining how Natsu also trusted Luffy for possessing this good-hearted nature despite being a pirate, all began to make Nami feel conflicted on the inside. Sure, there was the possibility that Happy was either lying (like all pirates did) or was too naive and trusting to see that Luffy was as bad as any pirate. But what if he was telling the truth?

Nami could only ponder this as she saw the 4 superhuman young men easily defeat an entire army, not noticing that the captain of the pirate army she was fighting was not even there anymore.

In fact, said captain was trying to stealthily sneak as far away from the conflict as possible, not knowing how the heck these 4 guys were so strong, but very much not wanting to stay around to experience the powers that these guys possessed first-hand. Sneaking alongside him was his first mate, Mohji the Beast Tamer, who sat on top of his quietly walking lion named Richie, along with his second mate Cabaji. Buggy was initially ready to kill Mohji and Richie to make his getaway easier (as Cabaji was still a useful guard and grunt), but he decided otherwise in his head since they were still good muscle which he could use to get more recruits and to terrorize the weak residents on the East Blue once again. He also figured that he could easily kill or abandon all three of them if he needed to make a quick solo getaway.

So far, their enemies (and Buggy's own men) hadn't noticed their absence, but at the rate that his army was being demolished, it wouldn't be too long before they likely came searching for Buggy himself. This made Buggy and his two "lieutenants" move a good bit faster, which led to them almost making it to the border of the town when a loud voice stopped them in their tracks.

"Hey! Stop right there, you bastards!" "Arf Arf!"

The 3 pirates and the lion all turned their heads to see a skinny middle-aged man wearing glasses in what appeared to be battle armor, aiming a spear at them. Right next to him was a small dog, who despite his miniscule stature showed no signs of fear as he angrily barked at the men (and lion) facing him and the man.

"I'm the mayor of this town, and you bastards are gonna pay for what you've done here!", the man said, feeling rather foolishly confident due to having witnessed the rest of Buggy's army being soundly defeated by those four strange but heroic men.

"Stay back, Shu-Shu!", the man yelled as he ran at Buggy with his spear, only for a grinning Buggy to casually dodge his stabs and deliver a brutal kick to his gut, before sending him flying into a nearby abandoned store with a single good punch. Shu-Shu barked in both alarm and anger and tried to lunge at Buggy's leg to bite it, only for Richie to swipe a single large paw at Shu-Shu and send him flying until he landed close to the store where his owner had landed.

As the mayor groaned in intense pain, the massive lion Richie was about to finish him off, when he was suddenly distracted by the realization that the store which Buggy had kicked the mayor into was actually a pet store, and it was chock full of all sorts of pet foods. Mohji also noticed this, and decided that he should let his lion get some food since the bloodied mayor was clearly not a threat.

As Richie walked through the store to find where the best food for it was, both Mohji and his lion showed no care as they both casually broke and smashed up various parts of the store, either in a brutish attempt to find the food Richie wanted, or because they simply felt like destroying something. When an injured Shu-Shu got to his feet, he was greeted with the site of the pet store being heartlessly ravaged and demolished, causing his eyes to widen in a mixture of shock, grief, and anger. Memories of his beloved owner who had taken care of both him and the store, through both good times and bad times, how much his owner loved both him and his store, and him telling both his old friend the mayor and Shu-Shu to take care of the store right before he went to the hospital and never returned, all flowing within Shu-Shu's mind. As these memories burned within the dog's thoughts, he angrily got to his feet and loudly barked, before running at Richie and biting onto the lion's leg with all his might.

More annoyed than hurt, the lion angrily shook its leg to dislodge Shu-Shu, before casually kicking it with the back of its leg, further injuring the dog as it landed on the street. Mohji and Richie, both being now irritated at this weak yet noisy dog that refused to just lay over and die, snarled as Mohji ordered a willing Richie to turn and walk up to where the bleeding Shu-Shu lay on the street. The lion loomed over the beaten dog, growling at the shivering and bleeding dog lying at his feet, before suddenly lunging in for the kill.

"YOU BASTARDS!"

All 5 of them, both men and mammals, turned their heads to see Natsu and Luffy angrily leaping at Mohji and Richie with their right hands reeled back and ready to punch, Buggy's army of petty thugs having been utterly decimated. Buggy's face was frozen in shock, while Mohji and Richie's eyes widened as they were unable to react to their impending assailants.

"BAM!"

Both the man and his lion were sent skidding across the street, Mohji having caught a wound-up punch to the face from Luffy and Richie having punched in the side by a flaming fist that sent him flying while also setting his body briefly ablaze.

As Mohji tried recovering from that brutal punch to the face, he heard footsteps and looked up to see an oddly calm Luffy walk up to where he lay, staring daggers down at him with a stone-cold face.

"P-Please!", the once arrogant man begged. "I'll give you all the gold you want! I'm sorry! Just let me go!"

"It's too late for that", Luffy responded in a tranquil but clearly livid tone. "You didn't care about hurting someone who couldn't fight back, so now it's time for me to return the favor! GUM GUM!"

"WAIT, NO!"

"PISTOL!"

"BAM!"

Mohji was once again hit in the face, sending him into the ground with a good number of his teeth missing as he went out like a light.

As this was happening, Natsu casually dodged some desperation-fueled swipes from Richie, before taking a deep breath and uttering "Fire Dragon…ROAR!".

The lion's eyes widened as a massive wave of fire engulfed him, causing him to roar in agony before collapsing on his side. Luckily, Natsu didn't like to harm animals any more than he had to, so he intentionally held back enough to spare Richie's life, despite his anger at the lion's abuse of both the dog and the store which the dog had seemed to care about. In fact, it had been Shu-Shu's barks of distress, anger, and eventually pain that had alerted Natsu to what was going on in the first place, courtesy of his superhuman hearing.

Nami, who herself had run alongside the others to the village to see what was happening, saw the bloodied mayor lying next to the pet store, and quickly ran over to help him get on his feet. After doing so, both she and the mayor looked at the pet store, now smashed to pieces as Shu-Shu weakly got back on his feet and sadly tried limping towards the store. Seeing this, Nami went over to where Shu-Shu was and gently stopped him from moving as she, him, and the mayor all looked at the pet store.

"My friend…this was the place he used to own.", the mayor quietly said, "He loved this place so much."

"Damn pirates! They're all the same! They just take away the things that people love most and laugh about it!"

The mayor just looked at the angry and bitter Nami as she said this, face showing little emotion and mouth speaking no words. However, they both heard someone walking up to them, and to their right they saw Luffy and Natsu casually walking up to them, a bloodied Mohji and a burnt Richie lying on the ground behind them.

"Hmph! I was hoping the two of you would've died!", Nami bitterly remarked, although even the resentment in her mind and voice was starting to waver ever so slightly, her views on Luffy and his crew conflicting with the words of Luffy, Natsu, and Happy, to say nothing of their recent actions.

"Ya know, you're being really rude even though we haven't done anything wrong to you", Natsu bluntly remarked. However, this only served to make Nami angrier.

"I oughta kill you guys right here and now before you can get even more crewmembers and start pillaging towns!", she yelled, only not lunging at them due to being restrained by the mayor. She could've easily broken out of the wounded middle-aged man's hold on her (even as he tried telling her to simmer down), but she didn't want to risk hurting him even in her rage. Also, as a seed of doubt in her view on the Straw Hats, her desire to use her full strength was lessening bit by bit.

Luffy and Natsu just looked at her, before Luffy bluntly replied to her yelling and death threats.

"Nah, you don't stand a chance against us."

"Oh yeah! Then let's go right now!"

Ignoring Nami's screaming fit of rage as the mayor held her back while begging in vain that she calmed down, Luffy and Natsu all of a sudden walked in the direction of the ruined pet store.

Upon entering, the 2 of them looked around to see if they could find any animal food that wasn't ruined, on the floor, or contained pieces of glass from the shattered window. However, Natsu suddenly smelled something, and went over to one of the few storage cupboards that wasn't destroyed by Richie stomping all over the store. Opening it up, he found a good amount of dog food, both dry and canned, along with some first-aid tools clearly meant for injured animals. When he and Luffy saw this, they both looked at each other and smiled, happy at their fortune, before walking back outside to where Shu-Shu lay, Happy flying up to them with multiple small boxes and containers in his hands.

Natsu and Luffy sat down in front of Shu-Shu, and Happy gently landed on the ground before handing Natsu the containers in his hand.

"I managed to find some medicine and ointment in the nearby houses. I hope it's enough.", he said with a look of concern on his face as Natsu simply took the ointment, dabbed some of it onto a paper towel Happy brought, and began dabbing Shu-Shu's wounds. The dog barked and winced in pain from the stinging ointment, but after a short while the pain faded away. As Natsu cleaned Shu-Shu's wounds, he happily remarked "Ya know, you were really badass there, doggie".

"Yeah!", Luffy cheerfully said. "We didn't see the whole thing, but we can tell you fought that lion with everything you had!".

Once Natsu was done with disinfecting the wounds, Luffy opened a bag of dog food that he'd found in the store and offered it to Shu-Shu. However, the dog simply took the bag in its mouth and walked a short distance away, before dropping the food and turning around to bark at Luffy, Natsu, and Happy.

"Thanks! Good luck to you too!", the three of them shouted back, causing Shu-Shu to happily bark some more and Nami to actually smile. As far as pirates went, at least these ones were friendlier than the ones she was used to.

Buggy, having seen the entire thing unfold, was beginning to realize how truly dire his situation was. In one day, he'd gone from being the leader of the most powerful pirate army in the East Blue to being on the run with nearly his entire army gone.

Wait a second, there was still Cabaji! Mohji may have had a lion, but Cabaji was an impressive swordsman and his strongest subordinate! Maybe he could defeat these guys-

"Hey guys, just got finished dealing with this weakling."

Buggy's hopes plummeted as he saw that green-haired swordsman from earlier casually dragging Cabaji's bloodied and unconscious body, with Zoro himself not having a scratch on him.

"Damn, I was hoping for an actual challenge when I fought this guy, but even if I was injured or something it would've just bought this clown a few more seconds in battle", the disappointed swordsman remarked.

"Speaking of clowns, where did that Captain with the big dumb nose go?", Gray dryly asked while looking around for any signs of the cowardly clown captain. At the sound of Gray's description of his nose, all logic left Buggy's head as he brandished his long knives in both hands.

"BIG?! DUMB?! YOU'RE GONNA REGRET INSULTING MY NOSE, ICY BOY!", he screamed as he launched his knife-wielding hands at Gray. Of course, his shouting had completely removed his element of surprise, allowing Gray to easily block the daggers with a wall of ice. Natsu, hearing where Buggy was, wound up his fist before lunging at Buggy, shouting "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" as he decked Buggy in the right side of his face with enough force to send him through multiple buildings.

As Buggy got up, his right cheek literally smoldering with a painful burn, he turned to glare at his attacker, only to be caught off guard when he noticed something rather…familiar about him.

"That hair? And your goofy smile? Damn it, you're just one dark tint of hair away from being a copy of that damned Red Haired Shanks!", he snarled.

"Shanks?! You know him?", Luffy asked.

"Hmm, you seem quite interested in him, boy. Yes, I know Shanks, what's it to you?"

"Where is he now?"

"So, you wanna know where he is, huh? Well maybe I know that…and yet maybe I don't know that."

"Um, what are you trying to say? Are you stupid or something?"

"WATCH YOUR DAMN MOUTH, BRAT! We're mortal enemies, you and I! You won't get any information from me without a fight, not even as a departing gift to Hell!"

"Then we'll just beat it out of ya!", Luffy and Natsu both confidently proclaimed as they got into fighting stances.

"Ha! You'll both be dead before you get a single word out of me! Not even rubber or fire can withstand my razor-sharp blades!"

And with that boast, Buggy hurtled his knives at Luffy and Natsu, both of whom easily dodged all of the blades with ease. Even when they both jumped in the air and Buggy threw even more knives to exploit their midair vulnerability, the result was the same, with Natsu either blocking or melting all the knives and Luffy swinging from house to house and dodging each knife.

Once a frustrated Buggy ran out of knives, both Natsu and Luffy landed on the ground and leapt at Buggy, with Luffy's wound-up right fist and Natsu's flaming left fist ready to land a combined attack on Buggy's face. Smirking as he saw the attack incoming, Buggy split his head from his body and shot it upwards to move clear out of the path of Luffy and Natsu's fists. However, a large chunk of ice that appeared out of thin air fell down on his head, painfully knocking it downwards and back into the path of Luffy and Natsu's fists.

BAM!

"GAH!"

Buggy could only cry out in incredible pain as his head was sent flying as it crashed through the window of an abandoned house.

As his head floated up, the confused and angered Buggy quickly reattached his head to his body that was lying on the ground before jumping to his feet, his vision going past Luffy and Natsu to angrily glare at Gray (as he'd seen Gray's ice magic earlier and knew that it had been Gray's hard ice that had landed on his head). The cyromancer, smug smirk on his face, casually waved back at him.

However, as Buggy was glaring at him, he noticed Nami trying to creep away with a huge bag, one that contained all of the treasure that he and his 2 lieutenants had tried to sneak away with but had dropped in all the fighting and confusion. Enraged at this, and at all the deception Nami had pulled on him and how she had contributed a large part to the downfall of his "empire", Buggy put some more knives in his hands before detaching the top half of his body from the bottom half and flying straight in her direction so fast that even Gray and Zoro couldn't react in time.

Nami ran as fast as she could, cursing under her breath at the fact that she'd been found out as Buggy quickly caught up to her.

"You've gotten the better of me for the last time, Nami! I'll cut you to pieces!"

BAM!

And just like that, Buggy's top half suddenly halted in midair, a strange look on his face as his top half twitched before falling to the ground, as Buggy could only let out faint gasps and squeaks of pain. Looking behind him to where his bottom half was, Nami quickly made out the reason that Buggy had stopped. Lodged in his crotch, enough to knock a normal man unconscious with pain, was the knee of none other than Monkey D. Luffy, who had made an educated guess and realized that Buggy likely felt the same sensations and feelings that he did when he wasn't detached.

"That…was a low…blow", Buggy squeaked as an angered Gray and Zoro walked up to him. "That's rich coming from a guy who tried stabbing me in the back", the latter replied as they simply stared down at his top half. Just to be sure, of course, Gray froze the entire top half of his body besides his head, leaving him unable to do any more surprise detachments with his upper body. Nami, realizing he was no longer a threat, gathered the nerve to walk up to him, and after a brief moment of silence kicked him right in the head, and did so while yelling "JACKASS!".

This left a massive bump on his head, but also snapped him out of his pain induced stupor, but right as he tried summoning the bottom half of his body to somehow free his top half so he could unleash his vengeance upon Nami, he felt that his bottom half was being restrained. Looking past his frozen top half, he saw Luffy and Natsu each grabbing one of his bottom half's legs, holding it in place no matter how hard he tried escaping.

Suddenly, Natsu got a wicked grin, before deciding to tickle Buggy's right leg to stop his struggling. "Let's see how you handle a tickle attack, ya stupid clown!"

"WAIT STOP, HAHAHA!" Buggy found himself unable to control his laughter as Natsu tickled him, never relenting until Buggy swore not to fight back. At this point, Gray took the chance to freeze all of Buggy's bottom half outside of his feet, leaving him trapped and helpless.

"Alright then, Buggy", Luffy said as he and Natsu dropped Buggy's frozen bottom half, before the Straw Hat captain walked up to Buggy. "Tell me what you meant about knowing Shanks."

"Ya better do what he wants", Natsu said to back Luffy up, "Or it's tickle time again!"

"Alright, fine!", Buggy complied, not wanting to suffer through that torture again. "Shanks and I used to serve on the same crew together, the crew of Gol D. Roger's no less!".

This caused the eyes of Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Gray, and Happy to all widen.

"REALLY?!"

Buggy scoffed. "Yeah that's right, you meddling brats! Back in Roger's heyday I was a deckhand in his crew, as was Shanks! However, one day I managed to find a map to a Grand Line treasure that would've made me rich!"

Nami peaked up at the last part. "Vast treasure, you say?"

"That's right! And what's more, the other pirates soon after found a Devil Fruit while on a raid, one that was worth 100,000,000 beri!"

At this boastful proclamation, Nami's eyes widened as her jaw dropped. One hundred million? That's insane! If she had just one of those that would be enough to-

"Yup, that's right!", Buggy boasted, unknowingly snapping Nami out of her thoughts. "And once I saw it, I knew that all I had to do was fool my crew mates by eating a false copy of the fruit, wait until I could steal the actual Chop-Chop fruit, sail away from the crew, sell the fruit for a fortune, and buy a crew and ship to help me sail to the Grand Line! A foolproof plan!"

His face clenched in anger.

"But the night I was about to escape with both my map and my fruit, Shanks decided to begin pestering me with some nonsense, so I had to hide the fruit in my mouth. And then, right when I thought the coast was clear, he jump-scared me, which not only caused the map to slip from my hands into the sea, but made me accidentally swallow the real Chop-Chop Fruit! After that, when I tried diving after my map, I nearly drowned due to the Fruit making me unable to swim!"

"How come you didn't die?" Nami asked.

"Pft, that worthless Shanks saved me, but no doubt so he could show me how much he had screwed up my plans?"

"Kinda seems like you're making this stuff up to cover your own ass", Gray dryly remarked, being wholly unsympathetic towards the self-pitying clown pirate, "and that Shanks saved you because, unlike you, he's a decent human being".

"SHUT UP! WHAT DO YOU PUNKS KNOW OF AMBITIONS, OF DREAMS?!"

This whining was really getting on the nerves of all the people surrounding him, but none more so than Luffy, who had gone eerily quiet after Buggy's questioning of his dreams. Calmly walking past Gray and Zoro, Luffy quietly dragged the frozen bottom half of Buggy to where his top half lay, before doing the same with the unconscious bodies of Mohji, Richie, and Cabaji. Upon doing this, he tied all of them up with some nearby rope, much to the confusion (and growing alarm) of Buggy, who began sweating and freaking out as Luffy grabbed the bundle of tied up pirates with both hands and squatted down.

Buggy's fears were soon proven to be justified when Luffy jumped in the air, both hands still clinging onto the ropes binding what was once the most feared pirates in the East Blue (which was also yoinked high into the sky). Using his rubber body, Luffy began swinging his arms counter-clockwise over and over and over again at incredible speeds, up until Buggy's nauseated face could barely be seen with how quickly he was being spun around. Eventually, however, the spinning did stop, much to the relief of the frozen and split clown captain, only for him to scream in horror as Luffy, now bearing a wide grin, began spinning in the opposite direction.

"GET LOST, BUGGY! GUMO GUMO NO…"

"NO!"

"TWISTER!"

And with that, Luffy used the momentum of his spinning arms to launch Buggy with the force of a hundred cannons all the way into the air, the partially frozen chunks of the screaming clown and his battered lieutenants quickly flying past the borders of the city, and shortly after those of the entire island, before blasting off over the horizon, a twinkle in the sky soon the only thing left to represent their flight.

Luffy watched that lousy clown and his men soar off with a wide and triumphant grin still plastered on his face, one that was shared by Natsu, Gray, and Zoro. Once they were certain that Buggy was gone, they all looked towards the stunned Nami and the wounded but equally stunned mayor.

"You guys okay?", Luffy casually asked the pair, to which the stunned pair could only nod, barely capable of comprehending this powerful pirate with inhuman powers choosing to be sympathetic towards them even after removing all potential opposition. Luffy and the other guys smiled at that, until Happy interjected the bright moment with a dose of reality.

"Uh, guys…not to be a downer but the village got kinda wrecked". However, this only made Natsu laugh. "Eh, I used to wreck villages all the time back when Gray and I were living with Paps! At least we saved everyone!"

Despite his blunt disregard for the property damage, Natsu's happy-go-lucky demeanor and the relief that Buggy was gone soon made everyone share a similar attitude, with even Nami and the mayor cracking smiles despite themselves. The mayor, still a tad wary but now very much grateful towards the unlikely saviors, let go of Nami and responded. "Well, you are right that the clown bastard and his fellow pirates being defeated is the most important thing, young man-"

"Name's Natsu!"

"Right, Natsu. But I need to know…why did you all save our village? Aren't you guys also pirates?"

Luffy turned towards him and gave a smile. "Yeah, but I don't want to kill people or break their homes or anything like that. I just want to live my life freely and explore the world!". "Yeah!", Natsu chimed in, "and I'm gonna go with him to find where my real dad went!".

This left both the mayor as well as Nami confused, stunned, and still a wee bit skeptical given all that had happened, but they were both certainly put at ease for the time being. Maybe these pirates really were different…

However, the sound of a small mob of townspeople, having seen Buggy and his men sent flying into the distance, soon got their attention.

"Hey, what happened here?" "Where did the pirates go?" "How did the town get wrecked?"

As the chatter from the returning townspeople went on, they soon turned their attention to the Straw Hat pirates, who seemed to be the one's behind both the destruction in the town and the injuries brought to both the mayor and their beloved dog Shu-Shu. Their confusion began to morph into anger, with the Straw Hats suddenly becoming defensive and frustrated as the uninformed villagers began to aggressively get closer to them with their weapons bared.

"STOP!", bellowed the mayor all of a sudden as he quickly stepped in front of the shocked Straw Hats and the equally stunned villagers, with Shu-Shu doing the same and barking at the villagers while standing in a protective stance in front of the pirates, even with his recent injuries clearly hurting him.

"These people didn't hurt me or Shu-Shu, they're the ones who saved us and all of the village from that clown-faced bastard of a pirate! They went out of their way to fight off an entire army for all of us! If it weren't for them, this entire town would have been destroyed! They even saved Shu-Shu!"

All of what the mayor said, plus Shu-Shu himself defensively barking in support, shocked the villagers (who knew that the mayor would have no reason to fabricate such a claim) into lowering their was a long and awkward moment of silence as both sides relaxed, neither side knowing what to do at first, until one of the villagers spoke up.

"Well, whoever you strangers are, we are incredibly grateful-"

"We're the Straw Hat Pirates, and I'm the captain!", Monkey D. Luffy cheerfully interrupted without a care in the world, with Nami angry at him including her in their group but keeping her mouth shut for the time being until she was far enough away from the villagers to smack Luffy to kingdom come.

"R-Right, and as I was saying we are incredibly grateful for you, uh, 'Straw Hats' saving our town, but it's almost entirely destroyed. How are we supposed to fix our homes, especially now that the Buggy Pirates have taken all of our gold and money?"

As the subject of money brought a quiet to the crowd, Nami immediately recalled all the gold that Buggy had amassed from both his pillaging of the island and his previous plunders, easily totalling in the millions of beri. Realizing that the islanders weren't aware of their treasures still being nearby, Nami remained silent. While she did absolutely feel sorry for the Orange Town people for the devastation that Buggy had brought upon them, she needed the money for her own goals, so as long as none of the people knew about the treasure then she could just-

"Oh, the money? I think it's still at Buggy's camp. You guys can just take it.", Natsu casually remarked.

"Huh?!", the villagers responded, shocked that a self-admitted pirate would just give the money back to them, along with being pleasantly surprised that they could get their money back, especially as none of the other young men in the Straw Hat crew seemed surprised or annoyed at this generous action.

"WHAT?!", a furious Nami screamed internally, her plan to nab the hidden stash now permanently blown, even as she kept her mouth shut and bit her tongue due to not wanting to piss off the dozens of people in front of her. She mentally swore that she was gonna beat this Luffy guy within an inch of his life if it was the last thing she did.

As the commoners' murmurs soon turned to cheers, the mayor enthusiastically thanked the Straw Hats for their generosity, and offered to give them anything (that could be reasonably provided) in return for all they had done. Before Nami could try and claim some sort of financial reward, Natsu and Luffy stepped forward and enthusiastically stated that they'd like to have a party with a huge feast with enough food for everyone (with Zoro insisting that there also be booze). However, when the mayor stated that such a thing would be highly improbable what with all the damage that needed to be repaired to the town and the disarray that the populace was in, Luffy and the others had little issue with accepting their reward of a sizable supply of foods in multiple bags as well as a pair of beer barrels that had avoided Buggy's plunder of the town (much to Zoro's delight). They also threw a large bag of fresh fish in for Happy at the request of both Natsu and Zoro, the latter grateful that Happy had saved him from Buggy's sneaky knife attack.

With their reward received, the Straw Hats went with an angry Nami to Buggy's former headquarters on the coast, choosing a fair-sized red ship that had a single large flag and was big enough to fit all of them as well as their goods. As the Straw Hats packed up their supplies, Nami finally let out her pent up anger and rage once she knew that the villagers couldn't hear her.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU NUMBSKULLS JUST GAVE BACK ALL THAT MONEY! WE COULD'VE GOTTEN MILLIONS!"

All of the guys, much to her added frustration, just gave her casual and blank looks even as she yelled at them, before Natsu casually responded: "I mean yeah, but you saw how much that clown dude and his buddies messed up the town, they needed it more than we did".

"And besides", Gray remarked in support, "It was their money to begin with. If we ran away with it all, wouldn't we be just like Buggy and his goons?"

That line froze Nami in her tracks, as her mind and body were both stunned into silence. As much as she wanted that money, a defiant part of her deep down knew that Gray was right. It was that same inner realization that had stopped her from blasting Luffy and Natsu to bits with the Buggy cannon. Who were these "pirates", and why were they nothing like normal pirates, like the bastards who-

"You gonna just stand there, or you gonna get on with us?", Zoro casually remarked as he and the others finished putting their bags of food onto the boat before hopping on and looking back at her. Realizing that the weirdness of these guys was way too much for her brain to process right now, Nami simply sighed and accepted her fate.

"Fine, but you dummies better help me get back the money you just cost me and then some if you want me to be your navigator!"

Luffy only laughed at this, and once Nami was on board he used his stretching powers to push the ship out of the water and into the sea, the wind carrying the young but clearly capable pirate crew onto lands anew.

—-

Hi everyone!

I am so so so so so sorry for not updating this! I unfortunately had to deal with college, stress, graduation from college, and maybe a few other things.

I will try to work on the next chapter much faster. *Nervous laugh*

And a cookie to whoever can guess what fictional ship design inspired the ship which the Straw Hats left on at the end of the chapter!