A/N: And now for something completely different: Updates.
Nami stared vacantly at the log entry she'd just written. She'd caught up on what she'd missed while she'd been ill, plus Chopper's addition to the crew. Things were good–Vivi seemed to have something resembling a plan for when they reached Alabasta, and, while his understanding of the situation was characteristically simple, Luffy had the right idea. He and the boys would fight, Vivi would expose Crocodile's evil, and…
"What am I going to do." She murmured aloud.
"Hm?" Usopp hummed absently from his workbench. "You say something?"
Nami glanced at the marksman. Unbidden, his advice from back at Baratie came to mind; that on the Grand Line, she'd need to find a way to keep up. He was right. Again.
She groaned internally, annoyed at the concession. Still, if she had to talk to anyone, Usopp was the most likely of all the boys to have once resembled something like a normal human.
"I need your advice." She said, pulling her legs out from under the table onto the bench.
"I'm listening." Usopp said, still tinkering.
"I want to help Vivi," she said. She swallowed, trying to piece together exactly what she wanted to say. "I know we're taking her home, and that's a start. It's not enough, though, and I… I haven't been that useful."
Charts, cartography, navigation–Nami lived and breathed the ocean; she hadn't met waters treacherous enough to beat her yet. She knew she was the best, and no one could take that away from her.
The sound of Usopp's hammer ceased, and the sniper looked at her, flipping up his goggles.
"Every time we've been in danger, I've run away or needed to be rescued," she said, frustrated by the admission. "I'm not built for fighting like the rest of you. I'm charming and cute. I know how to use that, but my first thought when trouble starts is how to survive, not how to win."
She looked up, backtracking a little.
"I mean, the Climatact's a perfect weapon for me," she said. She didn't want to sound ungrateful for what Usopp had already done for her. "It helps, it makes a big difference, but I still feel sort of… lacking."
She muttered the last word, glancing at the sniper.
"Well," he said thoughtfully. "It's not really fair to compare ourselves to Luffy or Zoro in the first place. They stand out even among monsters. But, Nami," he said, halfway smiling with more empathy than she expected. "You spent years living that way. It'll take time and a lot of work to change that mindset."
Usopp rolled one of his projectiles between his fingers; Nami could only imagine what the ammunition did.
"You're still better than I used to be," he said. He laughed; a brief, self-deprecating snort. "I spent longer than that being afraid, running away even when retreat wasn't the best option. I'm still scared shitless most of the time."
Nami's lip curled down. Not for the first time, Usopp's words didn't match up with what she knew; she had the feeling she was hearing something precious and even private, though. Despite burning with an urge to interject, she kept silent; she feared that, like an anxious animal, if she startled him, the moment would vanish.
"It took a critical moment," he said, staring at some far away point beyond the galley. "When I awakened my Haki: that's when I started improving."
Nami blinked.
"Critical moment?" She murmured.
"Do or die, in a sense," Usopp said. His expression hardened. "Everything–everything–was riding on just one shot. Anything less than perfection meant failure; and I refused to accept that as even a remote possibility."
Nami shuddered, scrubbing at her arms; the sniper's tone alone gave her goosebumps.
Usopp shook his head and the cloud lifted from his expression. He scratched his nose.
"Well, I'm no expert on Haki," he said. "I think that moment comes for everyone, though; whether it's being backed into a corner or a shock to the system. Of course," he said, looking up at the ceiling. Nami had the feeling he'd delved into theory. "You need to train and expose yourself to extreme stress repeatedly before you reach that point. Otherwise, you'd hear about Haki every time someone got held at gunpoint."
"USOPP!"
Chopper's scream preceded the small doctor slamming open the galley door and charging in, panicked. He leapt at the sniper, rambling breathlessly.
"Zoro'susingswordsandSanji'sblindfoldedwhydidyoutellhimtouseswords"
"CHOPPER!"
Usopp and Nami shouted, cutting him short. Usopp clapped the man reindeer's tiny shoulders.
"Breathe, slow down, and speak so I can understand you."
The doctor took a deep breath and blew it out.
"Zoro's trying to cut Sanji while he's blindfolded and"
"ZORO!" Usopp yelled, cutting Chopper short again and bolting out the galley. "No swords, scabbards only!"
"I'm using the back of the blades!" Zoro protested.
"What happened to that pipe we found?"
"Luffy snatched it," Sanji said, lifting one side of his blindfold. "Thought he was goofing off, but he's surprisingly good with that thing."
"Fine," Usopp said with a groan. "Carry on. But no swords!"
"How come he can kick and I can't cut?" Zoro demanded.
". . ." Usopp pinned him with a flat stare.
"Okay," he said, raising his voice. "Everyone who trusts Zoro with your limbs, say Aye!"
The swordsman cast an expectant look around the ship; Nami huffed through her nose.
"Anyone who doesn't, say Nay!"
"Nay!"
Came the overwhelming call of six voices and a duck.
"Oi." Zoro growled.
Luffy laughed at the swordsman's frustrated face, and Nami rolled her eyes, wondering how Zoro could've expected a different result. Just that morning, the captain had gotten his finger stuck in a glass bottle. Zoro's proposed solution had been to cut said finger off. The swordsman could be trusted with their lives, but Nami would pick just about anyone else to see her through danger intact.
"Heh," Sanji snorted derisively, blindfold back in place. "What's a swordsman without a sword?"
His teasing switched to heated cussing after taking a vicious hook to the side of his head.
"Scary," Chopper murmured, shivering. "And dangerous. Why are they doing that?"
"Haki training." Usopp answered offhand.
Nami glanced at Chopper, who'd turned a blank stare on the sniper. She nudged Usopp and pointed at the doctor.
"Oh, right," he said. "I still need to tell you about that."
Nami slipped away as the marksman and doctor settled in the galley. She winced, listening to Sanji and Zoro on the lower deck.
'I think I'll start with some calisthenics.'
"Mr. 2 Bon Clay! There's smoke up ahead; should we change course?"
Thwack!
Bon Clay kicked his man in the face.
"Stop jo~king!" He crooned with a flourish. "Do you wanna die~? Full speed ahead!"
Bon Clay spun in a pirouette as the ship sailed into the cloud on the sea. If he delayed one moment, he'd miss Mr. 3 again–failing his assassination assignment meant he'd be the next target!
"Ah, why is there a cloud of steam on the ocean?" He wondered aloud, spinning ever faster. "It's a questionable, iffy thing, no~?"
He spun all the way to the prow of the ship and leapt, throwing his arms around Swanda's figurehead.
"Ah! Iffy or not, Swanda will see me thro–eh?"
He blinked, suddenly cognizant of the fact that he'd somehow run out of footing.
And the fact that the steam had passed.
And that Swanda's somehow real feathers were quite soft and smooth against his cheek.
'Odd,' he thought, staring owlishly at a wide-eyed boy in a straw hat. 'He's not one of my men.'
"I caught a weirdo!"
"Ah!"
"Ahhh!"
"AAAH!"
Bon Clay lost his grip, so taken by surprise he was. He hadn't grabbed Swanda's neck, but that of a giant duck!
'Oh, how did I end up holding a duck when I aimed for a swan?' He wondered as he fell. 'Perhaps, as how I am both man and woman, I seek two opposing water fowl! Ah, how iffy~!'
A beat, just before he broke the water's surface.
"WAIT, THIS IS NO TIME FOR THAT I'M GONNA–BLURGLBLUBAUGH!"
Usopp wrung the seawater out of his bandana. Of the crew's non-fruit users, he was probably among the weaker swimmers; but when half the crew sank on contact with the ocean, and of those, three were dumbasses, athleticism didn't matter.
If a hammer went overboard, he dove in.
"Thank you for saving me!"
Granted, up until he'd vanished beneath the waves, only Usopp knew Bon Clay–aka Mr. 2–was a hammer, hence how the sniper had reached him first. The agent sat on his knees on deck, ocean water dripping off his impressive costume and pooling beneath him. His ensemble revolved around swans; two swan heads and necks adorned the back of his coat, paired with wings that crested each of his shoulders. Swans decorated his ballet uniform, and he wore a borderline excessive amount of blush, makeup and eyeliner.
Weird as he looked, he seemed genuinely grateful for their help.
"Could I have a warm bowl of soup?"
And stupid.
"Hell no," Nami snapped, looking moments away from throttling their wayward guest. "We're starving here!"
Only a mild exaggeration. Hence, Sanji's absence from the proceedings, going to war in the pantry trying to cobble together something that halfway resembled sustenance.
"Hey, hey," Luffy said, leaning forward over crossed legs with a grin. "What kinda power do you have?"
Usopp didn't know what do about Mr. 2. On the one hand, he played a significant role in Crocodile's scheme; and anything that fucked up Crocodile's day made Usopp's better. On other hand, Usopp liked Bon Clay, and he didn't want to lose out on a friend. The worst he'd ever personally done to the Straw Hats was pummel the shit out of Usopp's face, which, in the grand scheme of things… meh?
And it was hard not to respect the sort of guy who took a term like okama and wore it proudly on his back in bold kanji.
"Well," Bon said in a coy tone, one hand resting daintily on his cheek. "My men will be a while circling back to find me…"
He clapped his hands, leaping to his feet in one smooth motion.
"All right~!" He trilled. "I'll entertain you all for a bit!"
Wham!
Without warning and faster than even Luffy could react, he slammed his open palm into the boy captain's face and sent him tumbling across the deck. The general mood jumped in tension and Zoro's hand flew to his swords.
"Ho~ld it!" Bon said with a familiar laugh. "It's just part of my act!"
"?!"
"You get me?" Bon said. In Luffy's voice. Wearing Luffy's face. Only the cadence of his speech and his clothes gave him away. "This ain't no joke!"
"Whoa!" Luffy exclaimed, back on his feet and gawking at his clone. "He's me!"
Contrary to the boy captain's reaction to Bon's powers–and indeed, his own response in his first round–Usopp went tense. Reluctantly, warily, he probed Bon Clay's voice through Haki, and…
Found it was still distinct from Luffy's voice; he heaved a sigh of relief. Rationally, he knew it was unlikely, but given that Bon Clay could mimic everything else about people he cloned, he couldn't help checking.
For once, his paranoia didn't pan out.
Distracted, he almost missed Bon Clay tapping his face with his right hand, doing the same with the rest of the still-stunned crew.
"Well," he said, spinning on the tip of his toes. "Much as I adore theatrics, I didn't have to hit him. All I need is to touch you with my right hand," he said, pausing for effect.
He touched his right palm to his face.
Which instantly turned into Zoro's face wearing Bon Clay's expressive, flamboyant grin.
"And I can become anyone~!"
He cycled through Usopp, Chopper and finished on Nami's face, throwing out an excessively saucy wink and gripping the lining of his coat.
"And that includes the body." He declared, baring Nami's chest to the world.
POW.
In the brief interval before Nami clocked him so hard his body reverted to its natural form.
"Knock it off!" She snapped.
"Well," Bon said, recovering quickly with a somber downturn at the corners of his mouth. "That's the end of the demonstration; I'm afraid I can't show you any more than that."
"Awesome!" Luffy shouted, fists thrown in the air. "Do some more!"
"More!" Chopper cheered in tandem.
Bon Clay twirled into a pirouette, grinning from ear to ear.
"For my next trick~!"
Bon played, danced and all around made merry with Chopper and Luffy right up until Nami pointed out an approaching ship in pastel pink.
"That yours?" She asked.
Bon jumped from the main deck to the balustrade of the stern.
"Ah," he sighed. "Time for me to go."
"What?!" The kids exclaimed.
"Don't be sad! Just remember," Bon said, glancing back with a thumbs up and a watery glint in his eye. "Friendship isn't measured by the time we spent together!"
Silly as he'd been, Bon Clay's goodbye was a genuinely wholesome, moving moment.
"Let's go, men!" He said, leaping over the swan figurehead of his ship.
"Aye, Mr. 2 Bon Clay!"
A beat of silence as the brightly colored ship sailed away.
". . ."
Then came the outbursts.
Well, it had been a moving moment.
"You're telling me this guy could turn himself into clones of us?" Sanji asked, skepticism coloring his tone. "How good was he, anyway?"
"He sounded exactly the same," Usopp said. "He could copy everything right down to the vocal cords."
"Sounds like a creep to me."
"Running into him worked out," Usopp said. "Now we have a strategy to deal with him."
"Yeah," Sanji said slowly, staring at the wrap on his left arm. "We do. I don't get it."
"?"
"The marimo came up with this?" Sanji muttered suspiciously.
A beat.
Wide-eyed, Sanji whirled around to point at the swordsman.
"Shit! The okama's still here!"
"I WILL KILL YOU!" Mr. Bushido shouted.
"It's Zoro." Luffy said.
"Definitely Zoro."
Vivi let the conversation wash over her, preoccupied while she tried to secure her own length of bandage around her left forearm; it truly was a clever countermeasure. Mr. 2 could clone people, but he couldn't duplicate clothes or inorganic markings. She and the Straw Hats wouldn't have to worry about recognizing each other if they ran into him again.
It almost made up for her blunder earlier.
("You didn't recognize an officer agent on our own ship?"
"No! I didn't even know Mr. 1 or Mr. 2's faces, let alone their powers!"
". . ."
"I'd only heard rumors that he wears makeup, loves swans and wears a coat with 'Okama' printed on the back."
"You blind or something?")
That'd been… embarrassing.
She chewed on her lip; even still, she had other concerns on her–
Thip.
Vivi winced, brought back to the moment–and her poor job of wrapping her arm–when Nami flicked her forehead.
"You're doing it again." Nami said, taking the bandage from her and kneeling to help.
Vivi blinked. Twice.
"What?"
"Overthinking."
"Brooding." Usopp offered, piggybacking off Nami; he didn't even look up from securing the knot around Chopper's arm.
"Hiding in your own head," Nami said with a shrug. "Whatever you wanna call it."
Vivi frowned, vaguely bemused.
"Am I that obvious?"
She thought she'd picked up damn good acting skills during her time undercover. Yet they'd recognized her tics and tells so easily in the short time they'd been together.
"Lemme put it this way," Usopp said, swiveling around on his rear to face them. "I wouldn't play poker with anyone on this ship if I were you."
He hummed for a second.
"Course, any game Nami plays will end up rigged regardless of who participates, but still."
"I resemble that remark." Nami shot back without any heat.
Vivi huffed through her nose; she relaxed, if only a bit.
"So, what's on your mind?"
Vivi hesitated a moment before sighing.
"That man," she said slowly. "My father's face was among those he's copied."
"The King?!" Luffy exclaimed.
Vivi nodded; almost reflexively, she took her lower lip between her teeth again.
"Which means," she said. "That I have to consider the possibility that Baroque Works has infiltrated the palace. I don't know how else he could have gotten that close to my father."
Vivi squeezed her knee in a white-knuckle grip; the thought of the sort of havoc Crocodile could wreak with a false king gave her chills.
"Well," Nami said, tugging at the knot she'd made in Vivi's wrap. "In any case, the fact that our paths crossed when we're both headed to Alabasta means we're getting close."
"So does that, I wager." Mr. Bushido said with a lazy smirk.
Everyone turned toward the stern; Vivi swore under her breath. At least a dozen ships dotted the horizon, all of them bearing the same heading they were.
"Billions," she muttered. "They work directly under the officer agents; they're the elites of Baroque Works."
"That's a lot of ships." Chopper said nervously, hanging from the Merry's railing.
"There must be at least two hundred men between them all." Nami said.
Mr. Bushido scoffed.
"Don't let the small fry distract you."
"Yeah," Sanji said, in a rare show of solidarity with the swordsman. "There're only eight of us; we don't have the manpower to waste time."
They were right, of course. Dividing her attention between every threat was a luxury Vivi didn't have. Particularly now; they may have learned about Mr. 2's ability in detail, but the tradeoff was that, soon, Crocodile would likely learn that they'd survived Little Garden. They couldn't rely on being an unknown factor anymore. Vivi had to focus–otherwise the Straw Hats, her kingdom, all of it would…
"Y'know," Usopp drawled. "The good news is that we've taken away the element of surprise again. He won't catch us unawares. And," he said, wagging an illustrative finger. "We've got one advantage that improves our chances more than anything."
Vivi blinked; the rest of the crew regarded Usopp with varying degrees of indulgent attention.
"Crocodile thinks we're the underdog," Usopp said. "Even less than that, really. As far as he's concerned, the Straw Hats are just a fledgling crew that just happened to cross paths with the princess." He turned to Vivi with a smirk. "The fact that we survived this long can only be luck, right? Nothing for a Shichibukai to worry about?"
Mr. Bushido huffed; the corners of his mouth turned upward.
"It's not always the hardest punch that does you in," Usopp said instructively. Tony-kun stared up at the marksman with rapt attention and wide eyes. "Sometimes, it's the one you don't see coming."
Luffy chortled his agreement.
Nami smiled.
"Pretty convenient for a sniper." She said with a teasing lilt.
"A psychic sniper."
Usopp's eye twitched and he took a deep breath.
"I'll admit to being one of those things."
Sanji cocked his head in exaggerated consideration.
"Well," he said. "Easy to be whatever you want when you can read minds."
"Listen here, you little–!"
"Pfft!"
Vivi chuckled; she couldn't help herself, not in front of the Straw Hats' easy banter. No matter the situation, they didn't change and sailed through regardless. There was a remarkable sort of comfort in that.
"You're right," she said. "That is quite the advantage."
"Yeah!" Luffy said, hopping to his feet and holding out his left arm. "Whatever happens, this mark," he said. Vivi stepped forward in a circle with the others, all raising their arms in solidarity with the boy captain. "Is proof that we're nakama!"
A swell of gratitude brought a flush to Vivi's cheeks; she felt steady again, certain of her own two feet.
Luffy laughed.
"Okay! Onward…"
He pivoted on his heel, pointing toward the shore.
"TO FOOD!"
A beat.
"Then Alabasta!"
"Alabasta's the afterthought?!"
They'd brought her this far; she owed it to them, to her countrymen, to save the kingdom.
She'd spare nothing to see it done.