Adventure on the Frosty Seas:
East Blue Saga: Arc I – Romance Dawn:
Chapter 4: The Navigator
-x-x-x-x-x-x- AFS -x-x-x-x-x-x-
"Which way do I turn this thing again?"
The repainted supply ship formerly belonging to the Alvida pirates cut smoothly through the green water. The paint from Luffy's hasty re-branding had begun to chip in the salt air. That was okay because it was only temporary.
"Portside." Luffy's eyes bugged out comically as his swordsman turned starboard. Zero hesitation. One thing had become clear in their short time traveling together; his swordsman had no sense of direction. It was like any talent from that went towards his skills with a blade. "I said Portside, the other way!"
Luffy fought back a sigh. That was the third time Zoro had checked with him which direction they were going in. That wouldn't be a problem if he hadn't done them all the past twenty minutes … and turned the opposite way each time! Seriously, it'd been really funny the first few times, now it was just getting old.
"Jeez you're dumb. Even I can follow directions."
A vein throbbed dangerously on Zoro's forehead. "Like you're one to talk, you ate all our food!"
Blasphemy, slander! He hadn't eaten all the food. Just most of it. Luffy pouted and turned his head away.
"At least I can read a map." Still, it was a pain in the ass to need to tell Zoro the directions every few minutes. Luffy let out a groan. It looked like he would have to practice that 'response ability' Makino always talked about. "Move oughtta the way, we'll get there faster if I'm navigating."
The swordsman was all too happy to give up his spot. If Luffy didn't know any better, he might have thought the green haired man had tricked him into taking it on himself. Zoro was too blunt for something like that.
"We should really get a navigator. Someone who can plot our course and steer the ship. At least until we've got a helmsman." Zoro said, as he went over to pick up the two barrels of salt water connected by a dowel.
Luffy frowned as he corrected their course, steering in the opposite direction Zoro had been going. "There's only one navigator I'll accept in the East Blue. If the stories I've heard are true …she's gonna be the greatest in the world! Just like you, you're the best in the East Blue, and you're gonna be the best in the world too!"
He practically vibrated in place. Several years had gone into scouting his crew, and he couldn't wait until they were all together.
Zoro rose an eyebrow as he squatted the massive barrels of sea water. He'd taken to doing the same exercises Luffy did upon the captains order, one of the only serious orders Luffy bothered to give. If the excecises made him so strong, he just had to share them with his crew.
"Navigator … swordsman, sharpshooter. You mentioned the same thing back in Shells town. Are you saying you know exactly who ya want among the East Blue already?"
Luffy nodded with a smile. "Yep. My teacher gave me the idea when he taught me that stuff about quality over quantity. After a few years I managed to whittle the East Blue down ta four people. Two of em are easy to find, they stay in one place. You were the second hardest, I got pretty lucky you got locked up like that!"
The swordsman rolled his eyes. "Lucky for you maybe." Zoro muttered under his breath. "And what about the fourth?"
"That's the hardest to find! No idea where she's from, but there's a girl called Nami. Red hair, steals from pirates. People say she's psychic, she predicts the weather, and she can navigate the currents so well a dingy moves like a cutter, that's our navigator!"
There was nobody else he'd accept as his navigator. Only the best would do, and she was clearly the best! Though there was a slight hole or two in his plans, one his swordsman easily picked out.
"She steals from pirates … so you're gonna try and recruit her? Won't she just try and rob us."
Luffy shrugged nonchalantly. "You were a pirate hunter, now you're a pirate."
Zoro paused in his squats and raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "Fair enough." He went right back to his squats, though he asked the other thing that surely put a dampener on the plans."Still don't know how you plan to find her, since we're headed to Orange town. Can't expect every crew member to just fall into your lap."
"Well, pretty ladies can fall into my lap." Luffy responded. He remembered Shanks saying something like that. But his comment was so unexpected it made Zoro stumble, which just made Luffy laugh! Though he sobered up as he remembered the real reason they were headed there. "'Sides, Buggy the Clown is in Orange Town, so that's where we're going."
\The swordsman frowned."Not that I'm scared or anything." Luffy almost let out a snort of laughter at that. "But is there a particular reason we're headed towards Buggy the Clown? He's a big shot in these parts. He managed to crack five digits for his bounty."
His brow furrowed. Luffy briefly froze the wheel in place, and reached into the depths of his vest, pulling out a small stack of rolled up Bounty posters. On top was the image of bizarre looking man with an orange hat and clown makeup.
"I don't like pirates that pillage and plunder. They give crews like us a bad name. Being a pirate is about being free!" He clenched his fist as he stuffed the bounty posters away, making sure to straighten his red dress shirt and black vest. "Before I head to the grand line, I wanna make sure we test ourselves. So, we're gonna take on the three biggest crews around, it's just our luck they happen to be the pillaging type!"
Zoro nodded in understanding. As his swordsman continued to do his workout routine, Luffy kept a steady course for Orange Town. They'd be there in a matter of hours, and he'd finally get to have his first big test as a pirate captain. Hopefully Buggy was as strong as they said!
-x-x-x-x-x-x- AFS -x-x-x-x-x-x-
She stared down the nervous News Coo that stood on the prow of her boat, waiting for payment. The pelican had arrived minutes ago, trademark silly hat in place to mark its employment. They'd raised the damn prices again. Unacceptable. But she still needed the information the papers brought. Eye's narrowed dangerously, she reached into her pouch and coughed up the ludicrous five-hundred belly fee.
"Now give me my paper!" She snatched her paper from the frightened bird, who was all too happy to give it and get out of there.
With a clatter and flap of wings, the news coo took off hastily, buffeting her with a pleasant breeze as it took off into the bright blue sky.
Nami sat down with a huff and began to try and read the paper, accompanied by the sway as her small dingy moved up and down the waves. She had a few hours to Orange Town where Buggy the Clown was. Ever since that fiasco with the Alveda pirates she'd been in a bad mood. That was going to be a good haul for her! The only way to make up for it was to risk getting bigger hauls. The kind on the Grand Line. She'd learned from a Sailor she'd managed to smooze that Buggy the Clown was bragging about having a map to the Grand Line, and he'd happened to make his base in Orange Town.
She'd steal the map and take some of his treasure while she was at it. That would make up for the loss. 'I'm nearly there … two more trips.'
"Now, what's the news today?" Nami muttered to herself. If she was lucky there would be a new pirate crew she could rip off. They were the easiest to target, and a surprising amount of them had decent plunder. A single finely plucked ginger eyebrow raised when she began to read a story about a whirlpool being frozen solid along with half mile stretch of the ocean surrounding it.
As if! If the newspaper was going to be printing such fanciful stories, they should make them at least a little believable. What a waste of paper.
She turned the page moodily. Within a few moments the ridiculous claim was relegated to the furthest reaches of her mind. Nami was too busy planning what to do when she made landfall later that day. Buggy was nobody to take lightly. Though he was still a pirate. Flutter your eyelashes and let them think they had a shot; they'll be eating out of the palm of your hand.
Nami would never let a pirate touch her like that. The mere thought made her sick. At least he'd never shown any interest, nor any of his crew.
'Two more trips.'
As she finished her paper, Nami peered over the top. A sly grin slipped across her face. Appearing as a dotted line on the horizon, she could see the bay front of Orange Town growing ever closer.
She tossed her paper in the empty treasure chest she had aboard; meant for just this occasion. A larger boat with the black mast painted with Buggy's jolly roger had just appeared on the horizon. With that ship she could get to her destination twice as fast.
She had found her next targets. Time to play the helpless damsel.
-x-x-x-x-x-x- AFS -x-x-x-x-x-x-
Orange Town was a cozy little coastal village nestled on an unnamed island. Like many islands in the most peaceful of the Blue's, most people lived near the water. Half-timbered buildings lined quiet cobblestone streets in neat little rows, laid out in a haphazard grids that slowly spread out from the bay front.
Their ship slowly drifted into a lonely port. A single, black-sailed dingy bobbed forlornly next to a garishly painted ship. There was no need to guess who it belonged to. From the purple paint to the candy-striped crow's nest and elephant-themed prow, nobody but Buggy the Clown would sail such a ship.
Luffy created a slide to get down to the dock, tying the ship off so it wouldn't drift away. The paint was already beginning to chip; he hadn't done a particularly good job painting over it.
As Zoro joined him, he took the chance to glance around.
The port had seen better days. It wasn't obvious at first glance. Most of the houses and businesses were pristine. But some of them had signs here and there. A shard of wood embedded in the roof. A piece of cement that looked out of place. Something had been blasted to smithereens and fell back down.
Any serious inspection was ruined by a rumble in his stomach. Luffy was hungry. And a hungry Luffy wasn't the most reasoned person.
Sniffing the air, he caught the unmistakable scent of roasted mutton. His mouth watered at the thought of the succulent meat after days at sea with nothing but cured meat and canned fruit. He waved at Zoro, telling him to hurry along.
"Come on, I smell food!"
His crewmate chased after him, shouting exasperatedly. "Luffy, didn't you say we're here to fight?"
"Food first!" He answered.
Zoro just didn't get it. Food was the most important thing! You couldn't fight on an empty stomach. "We'll get to Bungy in a bit, I gotta eat or I'm gonna starve to death!"
Maybe that was a bit hyperbolic, but he didn't really care. Delicious, rich meat was being cooked, and he needed to fill his stomach. One plus one equaled three.
Luffy followed his nose all the way down the bay front. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. A cannon blast went off like thunder, a red blur slammed into his side. Only years of training allowed him to turn to ice the instant before impact.
Two feet of steel and black powder drove into Luffy and tore through town with the ease of a hot knife slicing butter.
Being blasted through houses while invulnerable was an odd sensation; like someone punching you with feathery pillows. Wood splintered and stone shattered in his path. In what seemed like an instant he was on the opposite side of town, nestled in the remains of a shattered house at the end of a trench that he'd dug through the settlement. The heavy timbers pinning him in place shifted easily, getting tossed to the side casually as if they didn't weigh half a ton.
His body was clear as glass, gleaming in the midday sun, refracting rays of light. Tiny cracks ran along his icy body with mist swirling about. They slowly healed over, and his skin shifted from ice to a glistening pale color, his hair white. That too shifted back to normal, his icy eyes bleeding back to their usual warm black as he allowed his power to fade.
He looked at the cannonball in his right hand with a frown. It was bright red, with the jolly roger of the Buggy Pirates painted on it. Who took the time to paint a cannonball? More importantly, why were they just firing them willy nilly?
"That wasn't very nice!"
Casting an annoyed gaze back in the direction it'd come from, Luffy cocked his arm back and hurled the cannon ball straight across town. It landed with a satisfying boom. Satisfied with his payback, Luffy grinned cheerily
After dusting himself off, Luffy climbed his way out of the rubble and into the street, careful to avoid any shards of glass.
The pirate captain had hardly stepped into the street when he found himself dealing with another interruption. Pounding feet and shouting as a redhaired girl was chased down the street. Three burly pirates chased her. It was pretty easy to tell from the miss-matched clothes they wore.
"Stop, thief!"
The girl they were chasing looked about his age, with short ginger hair cut in a bob. Mischievous brown eyes locked on him in an instant, already scheming a plan. Dumb as a bag of bricks he might have been, but Luffy knew a troublemaker when he saw one. He liked troublemakers.
"Hey boss, thanks for coming to rescue me!" she clasped her hands gratefully around a rolled-up piece of paper that'd yellowed with age, quickly dashing by as the men skidded to a stop in front of him. Using him as a distraction? Pretty clever.
He wore a pleasant grin as they surrounded him.
"She's getting away!" One of the men cried.
Another, a man with a prominent nose and blond hair bound in a ratty tail, simply grinned at Luffy. "Forget her, we've got her boss." His eyes glinted malevolently as he went to sweep Luffy's hat from his head. "We got the bigger prize right here! Ain't that right, Mr. Boss?"
His hand shot up, grabbing the mans sword hand in a vice-like grip. Bones creaked like drying brush under his grip. The boyish grin slipped off his lips, replaced by a steely gaze.
"Don't. Touch. My. Hat."
With a casual strength he used the man as a club, beating the three pirates into a bruised pile on the ground.
As he clutched his straw hat protectively, Luffy glanced up to the roof top of a nearby house where the girl had poked her head out. She looked nervous, though it melted into relief as he resumed his grinning, calling up to her cheerfully.
"Hey, I beat up the guys. Least ya could do is come down an' introduce yourself to your 'boss'."
The girl smiled. There was something a tad predatory about that smile, she was sizing him up, even as she slipped down the roof and onto the balcony of the two-story home. She wore a white shirt with blue stripes, and an orange miniskirt with a circle pattern on the sides.
Leaning over the railing so her shirt stretched precariously over her chest, she studied him carefully. She was slim, her skin fair and face delicate, with short hair as orange as a tiger's fur. She moved like one too, stepping nimbly. Her grace belied her generous figure.
"I suppose you've got a point, boss." For some reason the way she said boss made him shiver. That didn't make sense, he couldn't feel cold. Luffy filed it away as a mystery feeling. "My name's Nami, a thief that steels exclusively from pirates." Her eyes darted between him and the men he'd defeated. "Hey, you're strong. You beat those guys up bare-handed even though they had sabers. We should team up Mr. …?" She trailed off, clearly wanting his name.
"Luffy, Monkey D. Luffy." He replied. Something itched in the back of his mind about her introduction. But he was too hungry to think. "And I'll think about it, gotta find some food."
Sensing a chance, Nami vaulted over the balcony, landing on the cobblestone with the grace of a cat and quickly catching up to him. "Hey, hold on, I'll fix you something to eat, and we can talk."
Rubbing his stomach thoughtfully, Luffy nodded, allowing himself to be dragged inside the two-story home. Nami got to work quickly after sitting him down, moving about the kitchen swiftly as she got the ingredients to a sandwich together.
"You know, I can't put my finger on it, but something seems familiar about you." She commented as she worked.
He raised an eyebrow. "Weird, don't think we've met." Luffy glanced around the home, noting the fact that none of the pictures showed Nami, just an average looking family. "I'm guessing this place isn't yours, so what're you doing here, and why were those guys chasing you?"
The ginger-haired girl froze, tucking a long curly strand of hair behind her left ear, before turning around with a big sandwich on a plate. It looked delicious; a large slab of ham nestled on a giant hunk of bread. His mouth watered at the sight! Though, he could do without the veggies.
After setting it down she took a seat across from him. "The residents of the town fled when Buggy moved in. I'm just hiding out here while I plan my heist. I already managed to get a map of the grand line. I'm gonna use it to get a big haul!" she said, leaning forward eagerly as he dug into his sandwich. "I hope you consider my offer. We'd make a great team! With my navigation and brains and your strength we could make a lot of berries on the grand line. Come on, you won't find a better navigator than me in the East Blue!"
"The Grand Line? Awesome! I've been looking for a navigator, though I've already got one in mind. She's–" He paused, as something occurred to him
Luffy squinted, studying the girl more closely. Orange hair, check. Steals from pirates, also check. Really good navigator? Check. The reality slowly dawned on him, he'd managed to find his navigator, and in such a random place. Swallowing the rest of his sandwich, his excitement couldn't be contained. Luffy leapt from his seat with a gleeful shout.
"I found you!"
-x-x-x-x-x-x- AFS -x-x-x-x-x-x-
Well, what did you think? Luffy has finally come across his navigator, and by pure chance! Next chapter we'll see Luffy meeting the mayor, and getting even more reason to kick Buggy's ass.
As always, I'd like to take a moment to thank all my patrons for their support. Chapter 6 is out on pa tre on right now, and there will be a special Halloween chapter on the 31st for a pat re on exclusive one-shot I did a couple years ago for Naruto x High School of the Dead.
⸻ Patron Shoutout Wall ⸻
Odin Darkfeather, Kit Arashi, MASTERCHEIF1229, Cory Toler, Tyler J Renshaw, Kyle Alexandr, hunter jensen, SIRDBZ, Echoes at Dawn, firedemon12, Ty'Ree Gary, Pope Gregory Trivium III, Damon Frey, Christopher Thomas, BigBadDetonation, Tyler Swigerr, anime gaming, Yuto, Arnzok, Stewart Willis, Flashfox, Michael Alvarez, Leeland, Lutescu Mihnea, Bepo2332, Leeland, Jorge Ramos-Barreto, John Chastain, Vallyn Fera, Ron, cookiedo, Currtsy, Devon Strand, SupremeRuler17, Decoy_M9, James Hines, Moon, Morgan C Williams, Zach SH VD, Jackmin, Saul Deras, aroeah126, Kevin Lopez, Dominic Spindler, Francis Johnson, cory williams, Patrick Wooding, Lil Uber Vert, James Sampson, Carlos Neftali Benitez Vazquez, Steve Dixon, King230, Sandeep S, Ismael Colibaly, Koji, JJM 521, Whosevershark, Dillon Shropshire, J, Nick Wieber, Casey Needler, Jonah Vogel, Setsuna, Ionescu George, Drew Edwards, Anthony Dunn, Justin McClendis, McMoiwst, Jabari M Hamilton, hexine, Imari Castelow, Jose Vazquez, WhoIsMitch, RNGArched Tree, Nuro, Matthew Conroy, Dylan Mamea, vmore 1228, Shelwyn Klutz, Oshane Williams, Jacob Romero, Uriano de Oliveira, Victor Barrett, BigCam, Detallion Ziglar, SilierAto2002, Gabe Sarti, artilleryjunkie, SilverPenguin44, Jeb, Hieu Phan, Kojiro, Alex Hawthorne, Doobiesnax42, inbredbobafett, Jas Sidhu, Brandon, Nathan, Nashawn Best, Notarealname, Jamarion Williams, Mike G, Cesar, Roger Felger, Isai Navarro, Rolev, Saiko no Kami.
Until Next Time,
RinneTaicho, Signing Off!