Chapter Text
The robot whale was bigger than they were expecting, as stupid as that may have sounded. Koni reasoned that it was an Island Whale, so running around its insides would take a while. Either way, they were in a giant canal, with railings on either side, surrounded by a massive dark red fleshy ceiling. Actually, the best word for it would probably be ‘cavernous’. And it was taking forever.
“I feel like we haven’t actually gone anywhere,” Koni griped.
“I could rocket us forward, that ought to be faster,” Luffy suggested.
Koni winced, “Getting off of Loguetown was as much Rocket as I can handle,” she glanced over the side of the railing as they ran, “Besides, if you miss, we could fall into the water.”
“Right, that would be bad.” The Devil Fruit handicap was harsh, sometimes. Still, it would be nice if they could go a little faster.
And then the whale shook.
Well, ‘shook’ really didn’t exactly get across exactly what happened. The entire canal, and with it the walkway, suddenly and violently shifted, with all the grace of a shopping cart hitting a wall. The unfortunate pirates, however, were flung forward like anything that would have been in said shopping cart. And Luffy, being made of rubber, immediately began bouncing down the walkway like the world’s unhappiest bouncy ball.
“HEEEEELLLLP” he yelled as he flew down the canal.
“LUFFY!” Koni screamed in fear as she made chase in Half-Oni form. If she let their captain die, what would she say to the rest of the crew?! Especially if he died to something this random! She sprinted as hard as she could, trying to keep up with the erratic path of the rubber boy. She barely noticed as she almost bowled over an old, flower-like man in a pink shirt. “Sorry!”
“What the-?!” she heard him say, but she was too focused on saving Luffy. She could make out a wall approaching in the gloom. Or, wait it had a crease in it, maybe it was a gate? Either way, Luffy was flying towards it fast, particularly at a door on the walkway that lead to the other side. Needless to say, it met the same fate as anything else that the resident rubber moron had crashed into.
She heard his panicked yell as he took the door off its hinges, opening up into a much brighter area. Tearing out of the door herself, Koni skid to a stop to take in the fact that:
A: She was suddenly outside.
B: The walkway suddenly ended.
C: What was at the bottom of the drop was nothing but what looked like green water.
Dropping onto her knees to look over the side, she could only watch in horror as her captain plummeted into said green water. Half of her brain shouted at her to jump over the side, the other half telling it to stop being an idiot, because if she jumped in after them then they’d just be left with two people drowning instead of one.
“Move!” came the voice of the old man. Koni had just enough time to dodge to the side as he ran and dove into the water after Luffy.
“Koni?!” The girl looked up, seeing the Going Merry bobbing in the waves. Along with the whole crew.
“Guys!” Koni beamed as the crew paddled the ship over, the old man pulling Luffy up from the water. Dropping onto the ship she noticed two new, unconscious, people among the crew; a man with messy red hair and the number ‘9’ on his face, wearing a crown and a fancy suit, and a woman with silky blue hair in a ponytail, wearing a green fluffy coat over a tank top.
However, before she could ask who they were, Nami bonked her on the head.
“Ow!” she held her aching skull, glaring at the navigator, “What the heck, Nami?!”
“Do you have any idea how worried we were?!” she demanded, “We thought you drowned!”
“We were worried to!” the younger girl countered, “We thought you got eaten by a whale!”
“We did get eaten by a whale!”
“You can’t get eaten by a robot! They don’t eat!” The whole ship was silent for a few seconds, trying to process what the hell she was talking about, when the old man pulled himself up on deck, along with Luffy.
“Did you just call Laboon a robot?” he asked, just as confused as the rest.
“Its name is Laboon?”
Okay, so apparently yes, the whale’s name was Laboon. The old man, named Crocus, was taking care of him because he kept ramming his head against the Red Line. He explained this as they sat on his island… ship, which was floating in the middle of the whale’s stomach acid.
“So, not a robot whale…” Koni muttered, rubbing her chin in thought before turning towards Luffy, who was climbing a palm tree on the island and trying to get to the coconuts at the top, “Not a robot whale, Luffy!”
“Awww!”
“Where did you get the idea of Laboon being a robot?” Crocus asked, the rest of the crew just as confused as him.
“Excuse me, how many whales do you know that have metal hallways and electric lights?!” she shot back. Everyone went silent, having to concede that, to the thirteen-year old’s logic, it was a fair point. She rubbed her chin again, muttering, “But if he’s alive… and has metal parts…” she gasped in excitement, “LUFFY! CYBORG WHALE!”
“AWESOME!”
Anyway, the crew realized that, while weak, they were in fact still floating in stomach acid, and should probably get the Merry out before it melted. Crocus lead them through the tunnel out of Laboon, which is an odd thing to exist in Koni’s mind, and back to the Twin Capes, where he began to tell them Laboon’s story. Basically, Laboon had come to the Grand Line following a crew of pirates when he was just a baby. They had decided that having a baby, even a baby island whale, would be too dangerous on a sea like the Grand Line, so they left him with Crocus and a promise to return once they’d explored the sea.
That was fifty years ago. The crew hadn’t returned because, according to a reliable source of Crocus’s, they’d left the Grand Line long before. So, Laboon was heartbroken. Even after Crocus told him his friends were long gone, had left him behind, it didn’t change how he felt. That being that the Red Line, which had brought the crew and their whale to this sea, was keeping them from him, like the only barrier between getting back his friends was this red stone mountain. So, he began ramming his head against the rock, trying to break through and see-
“I’m sorry, are you… writing this down?” Crocus suddenly said, startling Koni. She looked up from her journal, importantly not the logbook, somewhat sheepishly.
“S-sorry, this story just seemed important, so I was recording it,” she rubbed the back of her head, “I wanted to make it one I could tell later. If I’m gonna tell a thousand stories I don’t think it’s fair if they’re all about me, right?”
“Did you buy a blank journal in Loguetown just for this?” Nami asked.
“Well, I didn’t want to forget all the details, but I didn’t want clog up the logbook either. So, I needed somewhere to write the stories properly,” Koni then gave a wide grin to the navigator, “Lucky I got them all for free, huh?”
Nami wiped an imaginary tear from her eye, “I’m so proud…” before smiling and giving the little log keeper a high five.
Crocus looked incredulously between the two before coughing into his hand, “Anyway, that’s basically the whole story.”
Usopp decided to speak up, frustrated by the story, “What kind of comrades were they, breaking a promise like that?! Why would they just leave him behind when he still had faith in them?!”
Crocus sighed, “Whatever their reasons, their actions have left a deep scar on Laboon’s heart. And he’s just too stubborn to accept that they’re gone, so nothing changes.”
Then they heard screaming coming from Laboon. Familiar screaming. Looking over they saw Luffy sprinting up the side of the island whale, dragging something big and wooden behind him.
“What is that idiot doing?”
“Something dangerous I bet, what’s he got with him?”
“Is… is that the mast?”
“I think it is.”
“GUM GUM,” came the rubber idiot’s voice from the top of Laboon’s nose, “FLOWER ARANGEMENT!” and then he drove what they realized was definitely the mast of the Going Merry directly into one of the scars on Laboon’s face. Then exactly what was happening caught up to his crew. So, in one voice they said what might as well have been the motto of the Straw Hat Pirates.
“THAT IDIOT!”
Laboon naturally roared in anger and pain at the sudden attack, flinging Luffy towards the Capes. The monstrous whale slammed into the rubber captain, sending him flying as Luffy gripped the mast still protruding from the whale’s head and used it as leverage to slam the whale in return. All the while Luffy was shouting taunts at Laboon, goading him into attacking, until finally Luffy landed on the rocky shore and his mountainous opponent charged at him.
“IT’S A TIE!” Luffy suddenly shouted, bringing the whale to a halt. His crew were likewise confused, stunned into silence as their captain gave one of his signature grins. “Your friends used to play and roughhouse with you all the time, right? Well, now you’ve got me! I’m your rival now!” Koni, like most when they saw Luffy do anything remotely intelligent, was floored by his insight. She watched as Laboon’s massive eyes welled up with tears, happy ones, and looked towards Luffy, wondering just who the heck he was. And then remembered.
He’s the idiot who broke the mast.
Koni smiled weakly as she listened to Usopp grumble about Luffy’s antics. While Nami was getting a rundown on how the Grand Line worked from Crocus, she’d volunteered to help their sniper and resident handyman fix the mast. Currently she was in Full Oni holding it steady while he hammered metal plates to secure it back to the stump that Luffy had left behind. She couldn’t blame him for being mad at Luffy, but also couldn’t say that this brand of idiocy wasn’t starting to be expected.
“I mean, who does he think he is?! Breaking the ship that Kaya gave us,” he groused as he hammered.
“Who’s Kaya?” Koni suddenly asked, peeking around the mast. This apparently startled Usopp enough to make him accidentally hit his own thumb with the hammer. The oni girl winced in sympathy as he howled in pain, “S-sorry!”
“No, no it’s fine,” he said as he shook out his hand, “I was lost in my own head and practically forgot you were here. He sucked on his thumb for a second before taking it out and shaking it again, then looking up at her, “Now, what were you saying?”
“I was just asking ‘Who’s Kaya?’” she said, adjusting her grip on the mast so she could look at him better, “You’ve mentioned her before. She gave you guys the Merry?”
Usopp was confused for a moment before realizing, “That’s right, you joined just after that. Kaya is a girl from my hometown. I used to tell her stories because she was really sick,” the long-nosed sniper had a fond smile on his face as he talked about her, “She was really lonely, cramped up in that dusty old room all day, I just couldn't bear to see her be so sad.” Koni was hanging off his every word. Rino had taught her that some of the best kinds of stories were the personal ones, ones that talked about important moments or people in someone’s life. It was clear, just from the way he said her name, that Kaya was a very important person to Usopp.
Sadly, the moment was interrupted when they heard an angry shout from Nami, berating Luffy and Sanji for something up on shore. Both shivered for a moment at the thought of the navigator’s wrath before looking at each other.
“Maybe we can save the story for when we’re done fixing the Merry,” Koni suggested. Usopp nodded and got back to hammering, carefully avoiding his thumb this time. “Actually, I think I want to hear everyone’s stories from before I joined at some point,” she said thoughtfully, “I bet those are pretty wild, considering everything that’s happened since.”
Usopp laughed a little, “Maybe you can sit everyone down and do interviews,” he puffed up his chest, “I can tell you all about the adventures of Captain Usopp and my 8,000 followers!”
She gave a knowing smirk around the mast, “As one storyteller to another, true tales only please.” He squawked in shock as she saw through his ruse, earning a laugh from the demon girl. After she stopped she tilted her head in thought, “That’s not a bad idea though, getting everyone’s accounts of what happened before I joined or even before they did would definitely add to my total. If we keep adding members I might need more journals though.”
“I doubt Luffy and Zoro have the best memory for that sort of thing, might want to take their stories with a grain of salt,” Usopp said as he hammered away.
“Said the liar.”
“Oi!”
Then the two started laughing as they finished up. Both appreciated the calm moment. Probably the last they’d get on the world’s most chaotic sea.