Chapter Text
"You kids go get some supplies, here's a list", Rayleigh announces right after breakfast.
Shanks happily takes the list – always up for a stride ashore – and turns to his bunk mate, smiling. "Let's go !"
Buggy grunts unhappily – for once they didn't have any chores, he'd have preferred they weren't commissioned out of the blue – but complies, shortly following.
The two cabin boys get off the ship and walk towards the nearest town in order to fulfill their duties. Soon enough the market is in view, and they speed up their pace a little to have some free time to explore afterwards, as usual.
Buggy gets bored at some point, he's not too fond of grocery shopping and he quickly finds himself wandering alone in hopes of finding anything of interest. After a short while though, he feels like exploring alone isn't that fun, so he decides to go find his friend back.
Shanks is nowhere to be seen.
Buggy went to every single stand on the market and most of the shops downtown, but he can't find his nakama and starts wondering where the hell his dumb redhead went again – his ? Where did that come from ? – He decides to walk to the beach near the port, see if Shanks is swimming or doing something equally inept – not that swimming is dumb, Buggy was pretty good at it after all, before he became a Devil Fruit user.
Shanks is still nowhere to be seen, but his treasured straw hat lays on the beach.
Buggy catches the hat, takes a second to put two and two together, and runs to the Oro Jackson as fast as he can, groceries and supplies long forgotten. Once on the deck, he goes straight to the galley, where he learns the Captain is in his cabin. Then he runs across the deck to find Roger perusing through a pile of maps.
"What's up ki-" The Captain stops himself mid-sentence, narrows his eyes at the straw hat the blue-haired cabin boy is holding as if his life depends on it. "What happened ?"
"I don't know, I left him alone for a second in the market and he was gone, I looked everywhere but I found his hat on the beach, that's all I know. What do we do ?" Buggy kinda hopes he doesn't sound as worried as he is.
"I'll go ashore with Rayleigh and a few volunteers, we'll conduct a rapid search of the surroundings." A hum, then, "The rest of you get ready to set sail in case we have to hunt whoever captured Shanks, which is likely since you found this on the beach", Roger adds pointing at the straw hat.
"Will do !", Buggy exclaims and goes straight to the sails, ready to unfurl them.
The aforementioned little group comes back from their search a little before dusk, quite in sync with the rest of the crew in their preparations. Roger informs the crew about their findings : they learned about a small ship leaving earlier in the day transporting suspicious cages. Human traffickers. There's no time to waste so orders are given short and sharp, and executed immediately. The Oro Jackson sets sail at sunset, everyone on the qui vive, but the night comes without any sort of good news.
By the time he has to go to sleep, Buggy is worried sick.